


my heart is a poor judge

by thekatriarch



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Mutual Pining, NO mortifying ordeal of being known! ONLY rewards of being loved!, Slow-ish burn, have you considered just talking to each other, what if you tried being honest about your feelings idk just an idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 32,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekatriarch/pseuds/thekatriarch
Summary: In the infirmary, when he’d regained consciousness, he’d been on very strong painkillers that made him drowsy and talkative and sweet. “Did you know you’re beautiful?” he had asked her one time, right before he fell asleep again. “You have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”She’d taken it too seriously; had thought that what they went through together on Scarif had bonded them, that there was somethingtherebetween them.* * * * *He wasn't. In love with her. He just thought about her a lot. And wanted to touch her so much that sometimes he could feel it like a physical ache in his chest. But he wasn’tin lovewith her. That was ridiculous.* * * * *Or: Jyn and Cassian try to figure their shit out (and eventually do)
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 121
Kudos: 203





	1. what's possible and what's not

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VintageVulpes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VintageVulpes/gifts), [halflingmerry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halflingmerry/gifts).



> You can consider this my apology for the ending of "what missing someone feels like" ;)
> 
> The genesis of this piece is that I thought I made it too easy for these two to fall in love in that story because I knew early into the drafting process that I was building to the sad ending. This story is kind of the opposite: everything starts out angsty, continues to get more angsty, but works out in the end! 
> 
> The title comes from the Aimee Mann song "Poor Judge": "my heart is a poor judge / and it harbors an old grudge"
> 
>  **VintageVulpes:** here's that "angst with a happy ending" you asked for ^_^
> 
>  **halflingmerry:** thanks for being so nice

It had taken a while for people to warm up to Jyn, but the chill was starting to thaw. It was frustrating, the way that people seemed to blame her for everything that had gone wrong, without giving her any credit for what had gone right. The Death Star was gone, and if it weren’t for Jyn it would still be here, but the shadow of Scarif hung over Jyn and Cassian, while Skywalker, Solo, and the princess were hailed for finishing the task the two of them had started. There had even been _medals_ given out, which seemed like a little much, under the circumstances.

Jyn didn’t particularly want to be hailed as a hero or given a medal, but she would like it if people at least acknowledged that the victory at Yavin wouldn’t have been possible without her and the others who had gone to Scarif. Only she and Cassian had made it back, which made things harder, maybe, because they were the least likable of any of them.

At least they respected Cassian, even if they didn’t really like him much. Jyn was an outsider. There were times when she wasn’t sure why she’d bothered hanging around, when she could have left, but her old life seemed bleak and empty now. At least here she could try to make herself useful. Her father had sacrificed himself for a slim hope of helping the rebels. She could deal with a few unfriendly looks to finish what he’d started.

So she kept her head down and did as she was told, and after a month or so, she was beginning to feel like maybe she belonged here after all. One of the pilots, Shara, started inviting her to meet up with her and her friends, and it was becoming a semi-regular thing, sitting on the floor or on boxes in one of the larger hangars and drinking.

They were all laughing a lot and talking about the mission some of them had just come back from, and Jyn was starting to enjoy herself a little. And then she saw Cassian walk by and she smiled despite herself and waved him over.

“Oh, don’t waste your time,” said one of the pilots. “Andor’s allergic to fun.”

“I don’t even think he sleeps,” said another one of them. “He’s some kind of very advanced droid.”

“Spends a lot of time in the bunk, though,” said Shara suggestively, and they all started laughing.

Jyn picked at her nails, thinking about how Cassian had looked at her in the lift on Scarif, and didn’t ask any follow up questions. Cassian hadn’t looked at her like that again since.

Cassian had been acting weird ever since he was discharged from the infirmary. She’d spent a lot of time with him there. She’d been worried about him; they had barely managed to escape Scarif with their lives, and he had almost died on the trip back to the base. That trip was sort of a blur, but she remembered holding his head in her lap and frantically applying bacta to any part of him she could manage. It was never going to be enough to save him; his injuries were internal and severe and would require immersion, but she hoped it would prolong his death long enough for them to get him back to base and into a tank.

It had worked, and he’d survived, miraculously. In the infirmary, when he’d regained consciousness, he’d been on very strong painkillers that made him drowsy and talkative and sweet. “Did you know you’re beautiful?” he had asked her one time, right before he fell asleep again. “You have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

So it had been like that for a few days, and she’d taken it too seriously; had thought that what they went through together on Scarif had bonded them, that there was something _there_ between them. It was frightening. It had been so long since she’d let herself feel that way about anyone; it always ended in heartbreak, didn’t it? But she was becoming a new person now. So she let herself fall for him.

Then he’d been released from the infirmary, and almost entirely stopped talking to her. He would nod at her when they passed in the hall, and maybe she could get him to talk to her for a minute or two, but he always came up with some excuse to leave, and he avoided looking at her.

She was ashamed of how much this hurt her. 

She stood up decisively and took a drink from the bottle in her hand. “I’m going to go talk to him,” she said.

Shara applauded. “Yes!”

“Quit stirring up shit, honey,” said Shara’s husband, Kes.

Jyn ignored them and followed after Cassian.

“Hey,” she said when she caught up to him. 

He gave her a quick, unreadable look. “Hi.”

“Where you going?” she asked.

“My quarters,” he said. “It’s getting late.”

She wanted to ask if she could come with him, but she was afraid he’d say no. So instead she just followed him. “Are you really allergic to fun?” she asked.

“Is that what they were saying?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She giggled a little, all warm from the alcohol. “How come you didn’t join us?”

“Because I’m allergic to fun,” he said, “apparently.”

“Well,” she said, “have you ever tried it?”

“Tried what?”

“Fun.”

He gave her an uncertain look. “I guess that depends what you mean by fun. I don’t usually sit around getting drunk with pilots, no.”

“So pretty much just sex, then?”

His scowl deepened. “Is that what they said?”

She laughed. “Shara might have mentioned something.”

“You shouldn’t listen to those guys,” he said.

“I’m coming in,” she told him when they reached the door to his quarters. Not asking. She was a little drunk, and she was sick of dancing around this. She was going to get an explanation from him. He didn’t try to stop her.

“Will you have a drink with me?” she asked, producing the bottle.

“I don’t know, Jyn. I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

“You _are_ allergic to fun,” she said, sitting down. There was nowhere to sit except the bunk. He stayed on his feet, eyeing her uncertainly from the other end of the room. She took a swig from the bottle and held it out to him. He hesitated a moment and then lifted it to his lips and took a small drink.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said. “What’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what’s going on with you? Ever since we got back, you’ve been…” His face was stony. “Different,” she said at last.

“How would you know?” he asked. “You think you know me? Because we did one mission together, you think you know me well enough to say there’s something ‘going on’ with me? We don’t know each other. We’re not…” He stopped himself. “What do you want from me?” he asked, sounding tired.

“An explanation,” she replied. “An honest one.”

“An explanation for _what?_ What have I done this time?” 

“For why you’re not talking to me.”

“I’m talking to you right now,” said Cassian.

“On Scarif, you were…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. On Scarif you looked at me like you loved me, is what she didn’t say. “How well do you remember it?”

He shrugged.

“Do you remember the lift?” she asked. “After we transmitted the file?”

He didn’t look at her. “Not really,” he said, but she was pretty sure that he was lying. “Anyway, we’re not on Scarif now.”

“And what about when you woke up?” she asked. “When they took you out of the bacta?”

“What about it?” He was refusing to look at her.

“What _about_ it?” she echoed, incredulous. “What you said to me—”

“I don’t remember saying anything to you,” he said. “I was drugged up.”

“So you don’t remember saying that—”

“No.” He cut her off. “Whatever I might have said, don’t take it seriously. I… I appreciate that you were there. That was… that was kind of you. But it doesn’t change anything.”

“What does that mean?”

“Why are you _here?”_ he asked. “I don’t think you should be here.”

“You don’t think I should be here in this room, or you don’t think I should be here, with the Alliance?”

He shook his head. “Either. Both. I don’t know. You said you didn’t care about any of this. You said that. You were pretty clear.”

“I changed my mind.”

“So you can change it again.”

“Why don’t you want me here?” she asked.

“It’s not about what I want,” he said. “It’s about what’s possible, and what’s not. And what you’re asking, what I think you’re asking, isn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Why isn’t it possible?” she asked.

“It just isn’t,” said Cassian. “I really think you should go now.”

“So none of it meant anything to you?” she asked, getting angry.

“It doesn’t matter if it did or not, Jyn!” He raised his voice a little. “I was dying. I was _dying._ So maybe I let myself imagine for a few minutes before I died that—”

“That what?” She stood up. She was shaking with anger and hurt.

His jaw was clenched, and she could see that he was shaking, a little, too. He looked like he had after Eadu; vibrating with anger. “That things could be different,” he said. “But they aren’t. So let it go, and leave me alone.”

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll stay out of your way, Captain.” 


	2. if the world were different

He almost said her name again as she left, but he managed to hold it in until she was gone. He closed his eyes and sank down on his bunk. His hands were shaking. 

He kept thinking that if he just stayed away from her enough, this would go away, but it seemed like it was getting worse. He never should have let her into his room.

On Scarif, he’d thought he was about to die, and he’d been okay with it. He’d spent most of his life assuming he would die soon, so in a way, it was almost a relief that it was finally happening. And he’d been there with Jyn, and he’d thought, distantly, as much as he could think anything as close to death as he was, that it was nice to know, right before he died, that he was still capable of feeling something about a person after all. He hadn’t known that he was.

He had spent the better part of the last decade trying to kill that ability. Caring about people was a luxury, one Cassian had been too poor for all his life. But almost as soon as he’d met her, she’d made him feel something. He had expected to find her contemptible: she’d been raised like he was, fighting the war since childhood, and she’d walked away from it for a life of petty criminality, in the service of no greater good, just her own selfishness.

But there had been something in her eyes that unsettled him right away, and the more time he spent with her, the more it bothered him. 

He’d shoved it aside; focused on his mission. The rebellion was the only thing that mattered. But at the end, when he was dying, it had seemed like it was safe to let himself imagine a different life. To imagine that the two of them might have had something. That they could have loved each other. If the world were different.

Then they’d survived, improbably. Impossibly.

Of  _ course _ he remembered the lift. It was blurry; he’d been in excruciating pain, he’d been dying, but he remembered her face, and her eyes, and how she had been helping him to stand because he wasn’t strong enough to do it on his own, and he remembered thinking how beautiful she was, and that if his mouth weren’t filling up with blood, he would have liked to kiss her. And he had thought, maybe by some miracle, I’ll survive, and I’ll kiss her then.

And then he  _ had _ survived, but he hadn’t kissed her, and he couldn’t kiss her, but having had the thought once, he couldn’t seem to let it go.

All he could do was try to avoid her, but it was impossible. The base was small, and Cassian was stuck here; not allowed to go do what he was best at because his general was pissed off at him for Scarif. He was being given low priority support assignments and rarely, if ever, leaving base.

Eventually the general would get over himself and let him go back to his job, but in the meantime, he was trapped on this base, where Jyn was. When he saw her and she smiled at him, he felt something inside his chest, something that actually  _ hurt, _ physically. He didn’t know what to do about it. He couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it would feel like to touch her hair; how soft it looked. 

She’d kept him company when he was in the infirmary, waiting for his injuries to finish healing. He’d taken a hell of a beating on Scarif. She’d sat there and talked to him while he was drifting in and out of sleep, and from time to time she had touched his hand or his forehead, and in that hazy period he had thought, maybe… Maybe.

But now he was back to himself, and he knew what was possible and what wasn’t, and a relationship like that wasn’t, never had been, never would be. Not for him. He wouldn’t have known how to do it even if he wanted to.

Which he didn’t. He  _ didn’t. _

He just wished he could stop thinking about her.


	3. oh honey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you are one of those who gets super intense about your otp I am letting you know in advance that Cassian has sex with somebody who is not Jyn in this chapter 
> 
> ok that's all thanks for reading!

Samaira showed up a couple of weeks later. “Miss me?” she asked.

He hadn’t, especially, but he said, “of course,” and let her in.

He and Samaira had started having sex about a year and a half earlier. It was sporadic, because they weren’t in the same place at the same time all that often, but that’s how Cassian preferred it. He avoided entanglements with anyone he had to see too frequently. Less risk of anyone getting attached.

“Shit’s been crazy,” said Samaira, “ever since you ran off on your little adventure. How come I didn’t get an invite, by the way?”

“You in a big hurry to die?” he asked. “You know nobody came back from that ‘adventure,’ right?”

“You did,” she said.

“Barely. Did you just come over here to talk?”

She laughed. "Well come on, if you're in such a hurry," she said, and started shedding her clothes.

They fell into the bunk as soon as they’d gotten their clothes off and Samaira climbed on top of him. Samaira was never very interested in a lot of preamble; she liked to get straight to the main event and she liked to call the shots, so he lay back and let her do what she liked. He hadn’t fucked anyone in a while. Not since before Jedha. Not since before he’d met Jyn; a thought he tried to dismiss immediately. _Don’t_ think about Jyn right now. 

“Hey,” said Samaira. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What? Nothing,” he said.

“You sure? You don’t seem like you’re really… here.”

“I’m here. Where else would I be?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Where are you? Am I boring you, Captain?” 

“No,” he said. “Of course not.” He grabbed her hips and pulled her down against him.

She wasn’t wrong, though. He _didn’t_ feel like he was all the way here. Like he was going through the motions. Like he shouldn’t be doing this. Like he didn’t _want_ to be doing this. Stop thinking about her. _Stop it._ He scrunched his eyes closed and tried to concentrate. He usually had a lot of fun with Samaira. What the hell was wrong with him? 

“Hold up,” said Samaira. “Seriously, Andor, what’s going on? You can't even _pretend_ you're having fun? You’re practically falling asleep. It’s a little insulting.”

“It’s not you,” he said. “I’m just…” He didn’t have an explanation.

She leaned over him, studied his face for a minute with a thoughtful expression. “So it’s true,” she said. “I thought they were exaggerating.”

“Who’s exaggerating?” Were people talking about him behind his back? “What are you talking about?”

She lifted her hips, climbed off of him.

“What are you doing?” he said. “Don’t stop.”

“Oh, honey,” said Samaira. “You don’t even know, do you?”

“I don’t know what? What the fuck are you talking about?” He sat up.

“You,” said Samaira, grabbing her underwear from where she’d dropped them on the floor. “Are in love with Erso.” 

_“What?”_

“And you’re in denial about it,” she said, continuing to get dressed. “It’s kind of adorable actually; who knew you had _feelings?_ But I’m not interested in being a consolation prize, sweetheart, so I think we’re done here.”

“Where are you getting this? I’m not— are people _saying_ that?”

“Yeah,” said Samaira. “Everyone’s saying that. I figured they were full of shit, but there’s _something_ going on with you. You have a better explanation?”

“Nothing’s going on,” he said. “And I’m definitely not— I’m not.”

He wasn't. In love with her. He just thought about her a lot. And wanted to touch her so much that sometimes he could feel it like a physical ache in his chest. But he wasn’t _in love_ with her. That was ridiculous.

“Whatever you say, Captain. I’ll see you around. I hope things work out with Erso, seriously.”

“There’s nothing to work out,” he said.

“Sure there isn’t,” said Samaira, laughing as she left.

He sat there and stared at the door for what felt like a long time. Was everyone on this fucking base talking about him behind his back? Saying he was in love with Jyn? Why couldn’t these people mind their own goddamn business? He fell backward, lying down again and staring up at the ceiling.

He wasn’t.

He definitely, absolutely wasn’t, because he couldn’t be, because that wasn’t possible.

Don’t think about her.

_Don’t._

He was just… having an off day. He was just distracted. He was just bored because he didn’t have anything important to work on. There were all kinds of reasons he might be feeling a little checked out that had _nothing_ to do with Jyn.

He rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in the mattress. Don’t think about Jyn. Don’t want things you can’t have. Don’t think about biting the soft, full curve of her lower lip. Don’t wonder what her body looks like, feels like, tastes like. _Just fucking stop thinking about her._


	4. strictly no feelings allowed

Jyn was in a bad mood, which wasn’t unusual. She’d been in a bad mood most of the time since that conversation with Cassian a few weeks ago. It was stupid to be so upset about it, but she couldn’t help it, apparently. She needed to grow up and get over it. Wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy?

It wasn’t so bad when she was busy, but the political leadership of the Alliance apparently thought that it was vital that everyone get time for R&R, which, in practice, meant there were several hours each day with nothing to do. Most of them filled these hours with some combination of drinking, flirting, sex, and nonstop talking about who was flirting and having sex with who.

Jyn was too stupidly hung up on someone who didn’t even like her to be interested in flirting or sex, and she wasn’t especially keen on talking about other peoples’ sex lives either, so that left drinking. It was getting old.

She wasn’t really in the mood to hang out with anyone tonight, but she didn’t feel like being alone, either, so she let Shara persuade her to have a drink, hoping it would improve her mood. It wasn’t really working. She was trying to keep up with the story Shara was telling her when Shara’s friend Samaira Willen walked in.

“What are you doing back here already?” asked Shara. “I thought you had a dick appointment.”

Samaira laughed. “Yeah, I ended that a little early.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” said Shara. “I’d just about gnaw through my own limbs to get laid and you’re just walking away from the best dick on base.”

“Hey, I didn’t tell you to get married, did I?” asked Samaira. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I told you it was a bad idea. Pour me some of that, will you? And he’s not the _best_ dick on base.”

“Yeah right,” said Shara. “Do you know Jyn?”

“I definitely know _of_ Jyn,” said Samaira, with an oddly conspiratorial smile. “Nice to finally meet you.” She sprawled out on the floor. “Well, Shar, I have to concede. You were absolutely right about Andor.”

“Oh yeah? You have some details for us?” Shara poured her a drink and handed it over.

“He was acting really weird, so I asked him about it and he got super cagey.”

Fucking hell. _Cassian_ had been her “dick appointment?” Jyn took a huge swallow of her drink.

“Andor, being super cagey? No kidding,” said Shara, sarcastically.

“This keeps happening to me,” said Samaira. “A perfectly good no-strings-attached hookup falls in love with somebody and it’s like a switch flips. At least usually they’ll _admit_ it, though.” She drained her glass.

Jyn frowned. What was she _talking_ about? “You think… _Cassian Andor_ is in _love_ with someone?” she said. “Who?”

Shara and Samaira both started laughing. “With you, obviously,” said Shara.

 _What?_ “No he isn’t,” said Jyn. “He basically told me never to come near him again.”

“My point exactly,” said Samaira. “If he _didn’t_ like you, he’d have no problem being around you. You’d be fucking it out by now for sure.”

“Sam,” said Shara, still laughing. “Don’t be so crass.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jyn pointed out.

“Not to you, maybe. Andor is… what’s the word, Shar?”

“Repressed,” Shara supplied.

“Repressed, yeah. I mean — excuse me, I’m going to be crass again — a hell of a lay — at least he _was —_ but it’s strictly a no feelings allowed type of thing. So if he’s avoiding you, it’s because he likes you.” She started laughing. “You should have seen his face when I brought it up. I’ve never seen such a case of denial.”

“Sam,” said Shara. “You didn’t. You brought it up?”

“Of course I brought it up. Just trying to be helpful. _Someone_ had to tell him, because he’s never going to figure it out on his own.”

Jyn felt completely off balance. This possible explanation for Cassian’s behavior had never even occurred to her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to believe it or not. It was almost worse, if he did have feelings for her but refused to admit or act on them. She’d almost prefer it if he just didn’t like her. What was it he’d said? _It’s not about what I want, it’s about what’s possible._ There was room in that to infer that he did want it, the same thing that she wanted. So what was so impossible about it? She tried to shrug away the memory of how he’d looked at her on Scarif, after they’d transmitted the plans, the look in his eyes that had felt like… 

“I think we should move on,” said Shara. “I’m sick of talking about him, and I’m sure Jyn is, too.”

Jyn nodded. She really, really was. And she _really_ did not want to think about Cassian fucking Samaira, which he had apparently been doing very recently, like within the last few minutes. Had she come straight here from his quarters? It’s none of your business, she told herself, what he does. Or who. She poured the rest of her whiskey down her throat and held the glass out for Shara to refill it.

“I suppose _you_ want to talk about Kes instead,” said Samaira, rolling her eyes. “I swear, you are getting so domesticated. You’ll be knocked up within the year.”

“How’m I going to get knocked up when I only see my husband for fifteen minutes every six months?”

“Fifteen minutes is plenty of time,” said Samaira.

“Oh, honey, it’s so sad that you think that,” said Shara, laughing.

Jyn kept sipping at her drink, ruminating instead of listening, stewing in hurt feelings that she knew she didn’t have any right to feel. He didn’t owe her anything. They weren’t in a relationship; they weren’t even _friends._ He could fuck anyone he wanted.

Unwillingly, she thought of that moment on the stolen shuttle, right after they got their clearance to land on Scarif, his eyes had met hers and he’d given her a tiny nod, and she had felt some connection there, something vital and living between them. Hadn’t he felt it? Had she imagined it? She killed another glass. She should probably go to bed before she got completely wrecked and did something stupid. Show up at his door and scream at him.

“All right,” said Samaira, “I’m off to see if there’s anyone else around here to have fun with. You girls behave yourselves.”

“Hey, Jyn,” said Shara, when Samaira had left. “You all right?”

“Fine,” she said. “Just… tired.” The lie sounded unconvincing even to her.

Shara smiled sympathetically. “I’m sorry. I should have tried to redirect Sam a little earlier. That can’t have been fun. I’m pretty sure she thought she was being helpful. She really means well; she just doesn’t get what it’s like to _actually like_ someone. And look, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but if you ever do, I’m around.”

For some reason, just this was enough to make Jyn’s eyes start welling up with tears. She shook her head, stared down at her empty glass. “I really wish people weren’t… speculating,” she said. “It just makes it worse.”

“I know. We’ve all turned into horrible gossips lately. I think everybody’s really freaked out about, you know, everything that’s happened in the last couple of months. Being nosy little shits is a good distraction.” Jyn couldn’t help smiling a little. “And you’re new, so that’s automatically interesting, and Andor’s… Andor. I mean, _him_ going against orders? There’s gotta be a juicy story there.”

Jyn shook her head. “I think you’re all making too much out of that. It wasn’t like he did it for _me;_ it was for the rebellion. It was the right thing to do. The council was just too scared to approve it.”

“Maybe,” said Shara. “But I don’t think you were beside the point, if you know what I mean. Anyway, if you ever _do_ want to talk about it, I’ll hold it in confidence. I promise I won’t repeat anything, especially not to Sam.”

“Thanks,” said Jyn. Maybe it _would_ help to talk about it. But she didn’t know what she would say. “I really don’t think there’s anything to talk about. He told me to leave him alone, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“Well, he’s an idiot,” said Shara. “But you never know, he might come to his senses. I bet you Sam gave him hell about it. He’s probably sulking in his bunk thinking about you right now.”

Cassian in his bunk, thinking about her, was the very last image she wanted in her mind. “I drank too much of this,” she said. “I’m going to feel like shit tomorrow. I’m going to go to bed, okay?”


	5. what to do about you

Two weeks later, he showed up at her door. His eyes were red and he seemed unsteady. “Why can’t I stop thinking about you?” he asked. Demanded, almost.

“What?”

“Why? Why can’t I stop? I’m trying so hard not to think about you but I can’t help it.”

“Are you drunk?” she asked.

“A little. Yes.”

“You never get drunk.”

“I had to talk to you.”

“About what?” She was blocking the door. She didn’t want to let him in. She was angry at him. She was furious at him. How _dare_ he show up here now? After he’d told her to leave him alone? And he’d been fucking Samaira, and who knows who else, ignoring her, acting like what had happened between them hadn’t happened, or didn’t matter.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

“No.”

“Please. I need to talk to you.”

“You told me you didn’t want to talk to me,” she said, cold. “You told me to leave you alone. Those were your exact words, Cassian: ‘leave me alone.’ So what’s changed?”

He shook his head. “I need to talk to you,” he said again.

“So talk to me. But do it out here.”

He closed his eyes. “I… Please let me in.”

She sighed and stepped back so he could come in. “You know this is a double,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her. “I have a bunkmate and she could come back any time.”

He seemed restless, wandering through the cramped space and finally sinking down onto the floor.

“So?” she asked. “You have something to say to me?”

He looked up at her. “I don’t know what to do about you,” he said. “It’s like you’re… in my head. And I can’t get you out. How do I get you out?”

“You want me to tell you how to stop thinking about me?” she asked. Cold rage was building up in her. “What is _wrong_ with you? Go cry to someone else, Andor. But I guess you can’t do that, can you? You don’t have any friends.”

He looked at her with his eyes all red and confused. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“Go to hell,” she said, yelling at him so she wouldn’t cry. “I _liked_ you, and you told me to fuck off. And now you’re here, asking me… what? What is it that you want right now? What were you hoping to accomplish by getting drunk and coming over here?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I thought if I just… if I came here and I saw you, maybe I would know. But you’re right. This isn’t right. I shouldn’t be here.” He put his head in his hands. “I’m not the same person since I met you,” he said, miserably, and it made her chest ache. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall.

She was angry, but she still liked him, and it was awful to see him like this, and she wanted, very much, to try to comfort him. But he would just go back to his old ways as soon as he sobered up, and she wasn’t going to give him the chance to reject her again.

“Do you remember Jedha?” he asked.

“Of course I remember Jedha.”

“There was a little girl,” he said. “We were… Saw’s people started something, and we got caught up in it, and there was a little girl. She was crying. You helped her. Do you remember?”

“Yes.”

“And I thought, what is she doing, she’s going to get herself killed. But you didn’t… you weren’t thinking about that. You weren’t thinking about you. You just… you saw that little girl and you helped her. You saved her.”

“Temporarily,” said Jyn. “It didn’t really matter. She must have died anyway, when they destroyed the city.”

“It _does_ matter,” he said, and then again, quieter: “It does matter. I was that kid, a long time ago I _was_ that kid. Before I… But I didn’t even think about helping her. I would have just let her take her chances. Let her die. Who _does_ that? What kind of person am I?”

“I don’t know,” she said, inadequately. She hadn’t been in any way prepared for something like this. She didn’t know what to do. There was something haunted about his expression. “You were thinking about your mission,” she said at last. “The big picture.”

“My mission,” he echoed. “My fucking mission.” He ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. “What’s the _point_ of any of it? What am I fighting _for?_ If it’s not for kids like that? That’s what it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? So kids don’t have to grow up like that, like I did, like you did. Isn’t that the point?”

“Cassian,” she said, “I can’t help you.”

“No,” he said. “You can’t. No one can help me.” He stood up, unsteady on his feet. “I’m sorry I bothered you, Jyn. It won’t happen again.”


	6. a mission

He made his way back toward his own quarters, slowly realizing that he was much, much drunker than he’d thought he was. He drank so infrequently that it didn’t take much to intoxicate him. He didn’t like it; never had. He needed to feel like he was in control of himself, and the situation. But the Jyn situation had already spiraled completely out of his control, so he’d thought he might as well try it. It was what a normal person would do: get drunk and show up at her door, and then… what? He hadn’t thought it out beyond that. That wasn’t like him. 

She hadn’t been very happy with him. I liked you, she’d said. Liked, past tense. So she didn’t anymore. He was such an _idiot._ What the hell had he thought he was going to accomplish? All he’d done was piss her off. 

What had he thought would happen?

This wasn’t him. He wasn’t acting like himself, wasn’t thinking like himself. He wasn’t himself. So who was he?

Back in his room, he sat down and closed his eyes, but that made him feel dizzy, so he opened them again. He had really made a series of bad decisions tonight. 

He remembered Jyn sitting right here, where he was sitting now, asking him what was going on with him.

Nothing. Nothing’s going on. Nothing’s going on except you’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met and I can’t stop imagining what it would be like to touch you.

 _Fuck._ This was a fucking nightmare.

* * * * *

He did his best to avoid her, and she did the same. Occasionally he considered apologizing again, but it seemed safest to leave her alone altogether. She didn’t like him anymore, and he’d driven her away, so he should just get on with his life.

Then he was finally — _finally! —_ called in to do some real work. Getting in touch with an old contact who had helped them with getting clean documents. He was going to get to leave the base, actually _do_ something. Get away from Jyn and clear his head.

Wrong. Because they were sending her with him. Forgery had been Jyn’s trade, those years in between Gerrera and the Alliance. It made sense to send her on this mission. And now he was going to be stuck with her. Alone.

Draven hated it, that much was obvious. Draven didn’t trust or like Jyn, and he blamed her for Cassian’s uncharacteristic disobedience during the Scarif incident. But he’d been outvoted, apparently, and Cassian and Jyn were going to find this guy together.

Great.

This was fine. He’d be fine.

They hadn’t actually spoken to each other since his stupid appearance at her door. But they were professionals. This would be fine.

“You been to Ord Mantell before?” he asked, as they were boarding the ship.

“What do you think?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

Okay, maybe they weren’t going to be _that_ professional.

“So, yes?”

“Obviously.”

He sat down in the cockpit, feeling irrationally angry at the ship itself. He liked his old ship, which was just wreckage in a canyon on Eadu now. If it was even that much. It probably wasn’t. And he missed his stupid dead droid, who had never shut up or stopped complaining, but who was the closest thing he’d had left to a friend. There had been some discussion of assigning him a new one, but he didn’t _want_ a new one. He’d reprogrammed K2 himself, and they’d been together for years. 

Maybe it was stupid, getting so attached to a droid and a ship. Maybe people just couldn’t help becoming attached to _something,_ and if he wouldn’t let himself love a person, a droid was the next best thing. K2 would have objected to that; would have said that he _was_ a person, of a sort. Maybe he was; Cassian didn’t know. Whatever he was, he was gone now, and if he were here, Cassian wouldn’t be alone with Jyn on this fucking ship.

“Will you relax?” said Jyn, sitting in the second seat. “We haven’t even left yet and you’re already vibrating. This isn’t Jedha; the stakes really aren’t that high.”

“The stakes are always high,” said Cassian shortly. “Are you ready to go?”

“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Jyn didn’t say anything else until they’d made the jump to hyperspace, and then she asked, “how long is this trip?”

“About six hours.”

“Great,” she said. “And I take it that we’re just going to sit here silently and glare at each other for that whole time?”

“Did you have a better idea?”

“Several, actually.” She smirked at him. “Lighten up, Andor. I thought you’d be happy you’re finally getting something to do.”

“I am,” he said.

“I’m ruining it for you, aren’t I?”

“No,” he said. “Not _ruining_ it. Making it… more complicated, maybe.” He gave her a sidelong glance. She was turned away from him, gazing out the window at the strange, beautiful patterns of hyperspace, and there was a soft smile on her face. 

She glanced over and caught him looking at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, looking away. Was this what it felt like, when you were in love with someone? It was agony. Why would anyone want to fall in love, if this is what it felt like? He stood up and left the cockpit. He may as well get to know the new ship. He’d practically lived on his old one; he and K2.

The ship was fine. There wasn’t much to explore. A cabin with a couple of bunks in it, a little nook with a partial galley and a table, some cargo space. Nowhere to get any privacy, of course. If there were at least a second cabin, he thought. He didn’t want to sleep two meters away from her. That was too close.

He supposed he could sleep in the cockpit, if he had to. He could sleep anywhere. Let her have the cabin. Except she’d make fun of him for it, or be offended. He sat down on one of the bunks and leaned back against the bulkhead, eyes closed, feeling the comforting hum of the ship’s systems running. Hyperdrive, life support, artificial gravity, everything humming along. They all took space travel for granted, but occasionally it struck him how incredible it really was. Cassian had been planetbound until he was well into his teens. Hardly anyone left Fest; hardly anyone could afford to. You had to prove your value before they’d send you out to the wider rebellion. Cassian had finally gotten to leave when he was seventeen. That was nine, ten years ago now. He’d never gone back.

“Taking a nap?” 

He opened his eyes. She was standing in the hatch that separated from the cabin from the cockpit. “I was thinking about it,” he said. “Nothing much to do, is there?”

“No,” said Jyn. “I guess not. What’s our plan when we get there?”

“I have a few places to start looking. This guy doesn’t stay put very long; you usually have to jump through some hoops to find him, you know? He’s a little paranoid.”

 _“You’re_ calling someone paranoid?” said Jyn, sitting down opposite him, on the other bunk.

“I’m not paranoid,” Cassian objected.

“Oh no?”

“I’m cautious.”

“I’m still not sure why they think you need me along for this,” said Jyn. “I mean, if this guy does the docs, what do you need me for?”

“We’re just buying raw materials off of him,” said Cassian. “He’s been raising his prices, so if you can do the work… Although you were in jail on forgery charges when we found you…”

“My forgeries are perfect,” said Jyn, smiling. “They got me on assault and possession of unsanctioned weapons and I happened to have some unfinished projects on me when I got busted. And even after they knew I was doing it, they still never figured out my real name. I’m the best there is, Captain Andor.” 

He smiled a little. “I know, I know. I was just…” Just what? Just teasing her, like they were friends. And she was doing the same thing. He leaned his head back again, looking up at the ceiling.

“Do you ever wonder,” he said, “what your life would have been like, if you hadn’t grown up with Saw?”

She didn’t answer right away. “I try not to,” she said at last. “And I don’t know if— It’s tempting, to say it all would have been different. But I think… My parents tried to hide. But the Empire still found us. I don’t think there’s a version of my life where I grew up safe and happy. I was actually born in a prison, did you know that?”

He hadn’t known that. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm. It was the Clone Wars. My father refused to design weapons so they locked my parents up, and that’s where I was born.”

“Who’s ‘they?’” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Whoever wanted him to design weapons for them,” she said. “The Empire didn’t exist yet, did it?”

“It depends on who you ask,” said Cassian. “They called themselves the Republic, but it was still Palpatine calling the shots.”

“I guess you’re right. You were on the other side?”

“I was on the side that wasn’t dropping bombs on my neighborhood,” he said. Why had he brought this up? Now he was thinking again of that little girl on Jedha, crying. “But it didn’t matter in the end. Now I’m on this side.”

“And do _you_ ever wonder?” she asked. “What your life would have been like?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t know why I asked you that,” he said. “It’s a stupid question, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” said Jyn. “Maybe it’s worth asking.”

“It’s funny,” he said, “to think Galen Erso went to jail because he refused to design weapons.”

“He never wanted to,” she said. “They _made_ him. I told you, my parents tried to hide, but they found us, and they took him away and they made him.”

“But he still built it,” said Cassian.

“He said they would have built it anyway. He _sabotaged_ it. Why are you—” He could hear the anger in her voice. Why _was_ he doing this? It was a good question.

“I know,” he said. “But you know… we barely did it. I mean that was some really subtle sabotage. If the Skywalker kid hadn’t shown up like he did…” 

“What was he supposed to do?” snapped Jyn. “If it was obvious, he would have been caught. I suppose _you_ would have done better?”

“No,” he said. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

Well, now she was angry at him again. At least that was safer. He felt too acutely aware of the space they were sharing.


	7. on Ord Mantell

“Son of a bitch,” she said. “Cassian. On your left.”

“I see them,” he said. “Come on.” He reached for her hand and she let him take it. He’d done that on Jedha, too, she remembered, like he was afraid to lose her in the crowd. But she’d been a reluctant passenger on that trip. She might have _wanted_ to get lost in that crowd. This was different. Still, she let him take her hand as they ducked down another alley.

“Not usually a big Imperial force down here,” she murmured. “What’s going on?”

“Good question. Nothing’s really the same as it was. I don’t like this. You remember our story, right?”

“Of course. Take a breath, will you?”

“I don’t like this,” he said again. “Something’s wrong.” He glanced back to where they’d seen the stormtroopers. They had found whoever they were looking for, or at least had found somebody to harass. Cassian’s hand gripped hers a little more tightly. “Come on,” he said, quietly, and they kept walking.

They’d been here for hours, stopping by places where Cassian might know someone who could tell them where to find this docs artist. So far they’d had no luck. A few people had recognized Cassian, but had flat-out refused to talk to them. 

“Why do we need this guy, again?” she asked. “I’ve never needed to buy IDs before.”

“Can we talk about it later?” said Cassian. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere today. There’s maybe someone… I’d rather not show up at her place tonight. The morning would be better.”

“Old girlfriend?” she asked, flippantly.

“Not exactly.”

“Current girlfriend?”

He glanced at her. “Not exactly.” He dropped her hand. “I think we better get back to the ship for now. I’ll go see her in the morning.”

 _“You’ll_ go see her in the morning?” she echoed. “Not _we’ll_ go see her in the morning?”

“Can you just trust me on this, please?” he asked.

“I can,” she said. “I do.”

“Okay. Come on. Let’s get back to the ship. And try not to get shot on the way.” His hand found hers again and she allowed him to lead her away.

She wasn’t looking forward to spending the night on the ship with Cassian, but it didn’t seem like she had any other option. At least there were two bunks. Nobody would have to sleep on the floor.

They made it back to the ship without incident. Cassian visibly relaxed, just a little, when they got inside and locked the hatch behind them.

“Seriously,” she said, “what’s going on?”

“That’s a good question,” he said. “That was a lot more stormtroopers than I expected to see. Something’s going on, and no one’s talking.”

“Are you always this jumpy?” she asked, sitting down and untying her boots.

“Yeah, usually." He sat on the bunk across from her.

“So are you going to tell me about this woman we’re going to see tomorrow?”

He looked a little uncomfortable. “I think it’s better if I go see her by myself,” he said.

“Why?”

“I just don’t think she’ll be as talkative,” he said. “If you’re there.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Okay, yes, fine,” he said. “We’ve had sex. Is that what you want to hear? I’m hoping that if I show up in the morning, she won’t insist on it, but if I have a beautiful woman with me, she’ll probably shoot one of us, or both. Are you satisfied now?” 

“I guess so,” she said, wishing she hadn’t asked. “So what, I’m going to wait here for you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think that’s the best. I’ll come back after I talk to her.”

She raised her eyebrows again. “Just going to talk?”

“That’s the plan. Hopefully she's feeling cooperative.”

“And if she’s not?”

“Jyn. Stop it.”

“So you’re going to fuck her?”

“What do you want me to say, here?” He looked, and sounded, stressed out and embarrassed, and maybe a little angry. She was angry, too. “It’s not my first choice, no. That’s why I’m going in the morning.”

“Never mind,” she said. “I don’t care what you do.” This sounded unconvincing.

“Look,” he said, “I’ve exhausted my other leads here. I don’t really _want_ to go see her, and I don’t love getting information… that way. I mean I’m not _proud_ of it.”

“The way you get your information is none of my business,” she said, cool. “I’m going to get some sleep. I suggest you do the same.” She lay down facing the wall, with her back to him.

“If you think it’s none of your business, then why are you asking?”

She didn’t have a good answer for that, so she just ignored him.


	8. Arik and Lyra Rallick

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” said Cassian. “Wait for me here.”

“Fine,” she said. “Have fun.” She felt a stab of satisfaction at the slightly bewildered, slightly hurt expression on his face. It was spiteful of her, but she was so angry at him that she couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about it.

“I’ll call if I get into trouble,” he said.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Jyn.” He sounded frustrated. She refused to look at him. He sighed. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

While he was gone, she spent the time pacing the small cabin, trying not to think about what Cassian might or might not be doing when he got where he was going.

She sighed, fell into the copilot’s seat in the cockpit. She didn’t have any right to be angry at him. He didn’t owe her anything; he could do whatever he wanted. But she felt it anyway. Angry, and sad, and humiliated, because despite everything, she still wanted to be the one in his bed. Despite everything, she still couldn’t stop thinking about the look in his eyes there at the end, on Scarif, when they’d both thought they were going to die and he’d looked at her with such… love. She didn’t know any other word for it. It had looked like love, and it had felt like love, and she didn’t know how she could have been so wrong. It had seemed so clear, and it had made so much sense, in that moment.

She felt tears welling up in her eyes and she hated herself for it. Crying over someone who would never cry over her.

He’d been gone about an hour when he called her on the comm. “Hey,” he said. “I think I know where our guy is. I’m on my way back. Can you meet me at that corner next to the thing with the face on the wall?”

“Copy that,” she said.

She _wasn’t_ going to ask him what had happened. It was none of her business, and she didn’t want to know.

* * * * *

“So?” she asked when they met up. “Where to?”

“This way,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re going to have much luck with him, though. Apparently word’s kind of gotten out about me.”

“What word?”

“People down here were mostly pretty happy with the cold war,” he said. “Good for business.”

“And now it’s not a cold war anymore,” said Jyn.

“Thanks to us.”

“So people down here know who you really are?”

“Not exactly. Not my _name._ But you know. It’s hard to get people to trust you if you never give them anything. What did you say when we went to Jedha? Trust goes both ways, right?”

“I can’t believe that line worked,” she said. “You’re less cynical than you think you are.”

“Oh, you were going to shoot me, were you?” He was almost smiling.

“I hadn’t ruled it out.” She smiled at him, all full of faux-sweetness. Somehow he’d gotten hold of her hand again.

“Well,” he said, “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“I guess you were,” she admitted.

“This is it,” he said, indicating a dingy little building on their left. “My name’s Arik. Try to let me do the talking, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

It didn’t start off too well. “Nope,” said the man the moment he saw Cassian. “You get out of here. I don’t want your kind of trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” said Cassian. There was a smoothness to him now that he didn’t usually have. He was playing a character now, she thought. “I’m not bringing you any trouble, just business.”

“I don’t want your business. You think I don’t know you’re helping those rebels? Last time I did work for you, I had stormtroopers all over my place for weeks.”

“I’m not asking for any work,” said Cassian. “Just want to buy a few things from you.”

“And you’ll have some cut-rate slicer try to do what I do, fuck it up, and it gets traced back to me? Get out of here, Arik. I’m not getting involved with any rebel shit. I have a business to protect.”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” said Jyn. Cassian shot her a look. “Do you know Lyra Rallick?” It was a name she’d worked under for a while, doing docs. There was a decent chance he might have heard of her.

“Rallick? I thought she was dead.”

“Well that depends,” said Jyn. “On what you mean by ‘dead.’”

“Well if she’s working with him,” — he nodded toward Cassian — “she’ll be _really_ dead soon. If she had any sense, she’d stay the hell away from him. If she’s as good as they used to say she was, I’m sure I could find more honest work for her.”

“I’ll let her know,” said Jyn. She exchanged a glance with Cassian.

“I’m serious now,” the slicer said. “You need to get out.”

That was when the door slammed open and the stormtrooper shouted “freeze!” Cassian and Jyn dove behind the counter where the slicer was standing, hitting the floor hard. She pulled her weapon and peeked over the top of the counter. There were four of them. She fired a few shots and dove back down, and Cassian took over.

“What the fuck?” snarled the slicer. “You see, you’re here for two minutes and this happens.”

“You have a back way out of here?” Cassian was as level headed as ever.

 _“You’re_ not getting into it.”

“The fuck I’m not.” Cassian turned his blaster onto the slicer and Jyn took over firing at the troopers. “Don’t push me here. How do we get out?”

“This is not helping!” she hissed. Then she took a hit to the shoulder and fell down, hand over the place where the bolt was still sizzling. _“Fuck.”_

“Jyn?”

“I’m fine. It’s fine. We need to move.” Getting shot in the shoulder wasn’t great for her aim, but she managed to take one down anyway. The smoke was getting thick. They really needed to get out of here, and soon, or they were all going to die.

“Well?” Cassian demanded. “I’ll make you two promises right now: one, you get me and my friend out of here alive, and I’ll never darken your door again. Two, you refuse even a second longer, or think you’re going to sell us out to those guys, I’ll put a blaster bolt through your fucking skull. You make up your mind right now.”

“If I ever see you again—”

“You won’t. Let’s go.”

He led them, crawling, through the curtain that led to the back. 

Cassian pushed Jyn in front of him. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Can you crawl? I’m covering the rear. Just focus on—”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Hurry up.” Crawling hurt like hell, but she could do it.

There was a hidden trapdoor in the next room, and she followed the proprietor down it, her wounded shoulder screaming at her. Cassian followed. “That’s not going to hold them very long,” he said. “Let’s go, let’s go.” He grabbed her by the hand and they ran through the dim tunnel.

Eventually they made their way outside.

“Thanks for nothing,” said the slicer. “If I ever see you again, you’re a dead man.” He turned and started running one way, and Cassian, with Jyn’s hand in his, started in the opposite direction.

“Back to the ship?” she asked.

“We need to get out of here. Are you badly hurt?”

“I’ve had worse. Let’s get back to the ship and worry about it later. You think they were after us, or just a coincidence?”

“Good question,” he said. They kept moving, quickly, and Jyn pulled her scarf up over her head. “I don’t want to wait around to find out, do you?”

There were makeshift checkpoints being set up on corners. She kept her hand on her blaster. “This is really bad,” she muttered. They were up against the wall of one of the narrow little alleys that crisscrossed the city.

“Yeah,” said Cassian. “What the hell is going on? Fuck, I knew we should have left yesterday. Okay, look. There’s probably a bunch of them between us and the ship. You want to try to risk getting through quietly? It might not be us they’re looking for. We might be able to get through the checkpoint. You made our docs. Are they good?”

“They’re good,” she said. “I’ve been shot, though. That might raise a flag.”

“On Ord Mantell? People get shot all the time. The other option is we try to lie low and wait it out. Until they catch whoever they’re looking for. Assuming it’s not us.”

“I don’t love either of those,” she said.

“Yeah. Neither do I.” He was still holding her hand.


	9. what you want

They did, eventually, make it back to the ship. Jyn insisted she was fine, every time he asked, but if he’d been the one who got shot, he would insist he was fine whether or not it was true, so he still felt uneasy about it. Once or twice he tried to let go of her hand, but he always ended up taking it again. The streets were crowded, especially now that foot traffic was getting backed up at every checkpoint, and they could easily get separated.

Yeah, right. _That’s_ why he wanted to hold her hand. So they wouldn’t get separated. His excuses and rationalizations were starting to sound pretty pathetic even to him.

Jyn’s work was good; none of the stormtroopers gave their docs even a second glance, just waved them through.

“Guess it was somebody else,” said Jyn as they boarded the ship. “Poor bastard.”

The first thing he did once he’d gotten them safely in the air and into hyperspace was turn to Jyn. “Let me see,” he said. He had to make sure. Now that the danger had passed, he needed to see for himself that she was all right.

“It’s really fine, Cassian,” she said. “It barely hit me.”

“Let me see,” he said again.

“Let’s at least go in the back,” she said. “It’ll be easier.”

He grabbed the med kit and followed her. She sat on the bunk she’d slept in the night before, which, he realized with a guilty twist, he had already come to think of as _her_ bunk.

He sat next to her. “Can you get this off?” he asked, feeling his face getting hot. Be professional, he told himself. You’re just looking at her injury.

She shook her head. “Can’t move that way,” she said. “You’re going to have to tear it.”

“Okay.” He found the hole where the bolt had passed through the fabric and tore. “This doesn’t look too bad,” he said, looking at the burn.

“I did tell you,” she said, her lips curling up into a smile. “Several times.”

“You did,” he said. “But I thought you might be…”

She raised an eyebrow. “I might be what? Doing what you would do?”

He smiled, looking down. “Yeah.”

He felt deeply, uncomfortably aware of her physical proximity to him. He could feel the warmth rising from her body, could smell her sweat, and his whole body ached with how badly he wanted to touch her.

Concentrate. He turned his attention to the medkit, finding a bottle with bacta spray in it. “Just a little,” he said, giving the wound a little spritz. Then he took some bandages and carefully covered it, resisting a desire to run his fingers along her skin. “You’ll be fine.”

She’d closed her eyes while he worked, and he found himself momentarily unable to look at anything but her lips. He needed, very much, to not be sitting here this close to her. But he couldn’t make himself move. 

She opened her eyes again. “It feels better already,” she said, and then: “what are you looking at?”

“What? Nothing.” He felt himself go all hot. She’d caught him staring _again._

“Yeah,” said Jyn. “Right. Well, what’s the plan now, Captain? I guess we’re going back empty-handed.”

“Not completely empty-handed,” he said, and she raised her eyebrows. “We’re still alive. That’s not nothing, is it?” 

She smiled a little. “I guess you’re right,” she said.

“Anyway, we don’t need that guy. You said you never needed to buy IDs before. You can make them from scratch, right?”

She smiled a little more. “Do you doubt me, Captain?”

“Never.” He was still sitting too close to her. He really needed to stand up. Or at least move over a little bit. He really needed to stop looking at her face. 

“Cassian,” she said. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said, looking away from her. He stood up, finally, and took a step away. “I was just worried about you.”

She set her mouth in a straight line. “Right. You let me know if you ever want to stop lying to me.”

“Who’s lying to you?” He felt a flare of anger. “You got _shot,_ why wouldn’t I be worried about you?”

She scoffed. “Please.”

 _“What?_ What are you _talking_ about?”

“Nothing,” she snapped, mimicking his tone. 

“Fine.” He stomped out of the cabin, back to the cockpit, flung himself down in his seat. Everything had been fine, and then she’d started picking a fight. Accusing him of lying to her. What was he supposed to say? What did she expect him to say? What did she _want?_

* * * * *

He’d fallen asleep in his seat, and startled awake when she came into the cockpit.

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to— I didn’t know you were asleep.”

“It’s okay,” he said.

She sat down. 

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked.

“Fine. Hurts a little when I move it.”

“I know I’m stingy with the bacta,” he said. “If you think you need more—”

“Cassian, it’s fine. It’ll heal up on its own. No need to waste it. I’m sure you’re going to need it sooner or later.”

He tapped a couple keys on the terminal, seeing how long they had to go. Less than an hour. “Almost there,” he said. 

“And then you can go back to pretending I don’t exist,” said Jyn. “That’ll be nice for you, won’t it?”

“No,” he said. “It won’t.” That ache was back in his chest. He was afraid to look at her. “I didn’t do it,” he blurted out.

She glanced over at him. “You didn’t do what?”

He still couldn’t look at her. “I didn’t sleep with her.” 

“Oh.” It was quiet for a moment. “You don’t have to tell me—”

“I know.” He hadn’t been planning on telling her, but he felt like he needed her to know. I didn’t do it, he didn’t say, because you didn’t want me to.

He’d told her that he was in a hurry, but that he’d come back after he’d seen the slicer, knowing that he wasn’t going to, and knowing that she’d probably never help him again.

“I’ll never be able to get information from her again,” he said. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” said Jyn.

“Neither do I.” 

“Cassian,” she said, and she reached her hand out to him. He looked at it there for a moment and then took it. He closed his eyes and turned his face away. What was he going to do? He wanted her so much, and he couldn’t have her. He _couldn’t._

“Jyn…” he said, softly. “I…”

“I know,” she said, dropping his hand. “Don’t bother.” She stood up and left the cockpit again.

He sat there for a minute before he got up and followed her. “Jyn,” he said.

“What? What do you want?” she asked him, hand on her hip.

He didn’t know how to answer. He made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Jyn,” he said again.

“That’s not an answer. What do you want?”

“I can’t,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I—”

She cut him off: “You’ve said that already. I didn’t ask what you can _do;_ I asked what you _want.”_

You could tell her the truth, some voice in the back of his mind said. You could. But of course he really couldn’t. At least not all of it.

“I want you to not be angry at me all the time,” he said at last. “I want us to be able to… work together, without yelling at each other.” That was true. No word of that was a lie.

“And that’s all,” she said.

Of course it wasn’t. Of _course_ that wasn’t fucking all. “That’s all,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “But then you have to stop… looking at me, the way you do.”

“How do I look at you?” 

“You know how you look at me. You’re doing it right now.”

He looked down at his feet instead. Was he that transparent? He’d always been so good at keeping his thoughts to himself, at keeping his face from giving anything away. Not anymore, apparently. At least not when it came to her. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I won’t look at you any more.” There was that awful pain in his chest again. “Can we at least be… friends?”

“I don’t want to be your friend, Cassian,” she said. “We can work together. Let’s leave it at that.”


	10. more bad luck

“I guess I’ll see you around,” she said as they disembarked back at the base.

“Yeah," said Cassian, looking at his feet. He’d been studiously avoiding looking at her at all since she’d told him he had to stop looking at her the way he did. Part of her almost regretted telling him that, because it felt so good when he looked at her with that expression like she was the most remarkable thing he’d ever seen. But every time he did, she’d let herself start to imagine that _this_ was the time he would say yes, he loved her, and he never did. How many times could she break her heart on his? It was intolerable.

Maybe he did have feelings for her, but it didn’t matter if he wasn’t willing to admit it.

Shara found her a few days after they’d gotten back. “There you are!” said Shara. “I heard you had an interesting trip to Ord Mantell.”

“Not interesting the way you’re implying,” said Jyn. “You really need to give it up, Shara. It’s not happening.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, kid. Hey, I bet we could find somebody else for you, though. Maybe somebody who’s emotionally, you know, functional.”

“Emotionally functional might be asking too much around here,” said Jyn. “Anyway, I’m not interested. Can you drop it?”

“I’m the worst,” said Shara cheerfully. “It’s because I’m married. Once you’re married long enough you just can’t help trying to set people up. It’s like a compulsion. Oh well, don’t worry; nobody’s going to be gossiping about you anymore. We’ve moved on to a new will-they-won’t-they thing that’s a _lot_ more exciting.”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Well, good thing I’m going to tell you whether you ask or not. It’s Solo and the princess.”

Jyn made a face. “Isn’t he a little old for her?”

“Way too old,” agreed Shara. “But you should see them. _Major_ sparks. They hate each other, but you know, in a sexy way.”

“People on this base have too much time on their hands,” said Jyn. 

Jyn had a little too much time on her hands, too, although she was being kept pretty busy forging docs. She was good at it, and it was challenging, delicate work. She was working on creating identities that would get intelligence agents into the highest levels of the Imperial military and government. Docs that would be scrutinized. It took care. While she was working, she could become completely absorbed in what she was doing.

It was that damn mandated R & R that was the problem. There had been no such thing as downtime in Saw’s cell. You were working, or you were sleeping, and that was about it. During those hours, Jyn was bored.

Maybe she _should_ try to hook up with someone, like Shara suggested. She didn’t really want to, though. It was still Cassian she had stuck in her head, and she really didn’t know how she was ever going to shake him. But the only way out was through. She would just have to endure it until she got over it. Eventually, she _would_ get over it, and someday she’d probably look back and be amazed she’d ever been so foolish.

She hadn’t spoken to Cassian in months; not since they came back from Ord Mantell. He was frequently away, but even when he was on base, they avoided each other, like before. When she did see him, he would nod at her, but not approach.

Inevitably, she got tapped to accompany him on another mission. She briefly, but seriously, considered saying no, but of course she had to go.

They had more bad luck. The place was crawling with stormtroopers, just like Ord Mantell had been. “What the hell is going on?” she muttered.

“It’s like this everywhere right now,” said Cassian. He was keeping an anxious eye on a patrol that seemed to be randomly harassing people, and he had one hand resting very lightly on her elbow, like he thought she might drift away.

“I think we’re okay,” she said. “Come on.” They started moving away from the stormtroopers. Don’t notice us, she thought. Don’t notice us.

Then, she heard a bone-shattering sound she’d heard a thousand times: someone had detonated an IED. She and Cassian both hit the ground, and Cassian angled himself so he was protecting her head with his body. “All right?” he asked.

“All right.” Her ears were ringing a little, but she could hear his voice. He was already up and scanning the area, hand on his blaster. “We better get out of here,” she said. About half the stormtrooper patrol they’d been watching was down but the others were shouting, and shooting. The last thing they needed was to get caught in the middle of that.

“Yeah,” he said, and he grabbed her hand and they ran for it.

They broke in to what seemed to be a totally abandoned building; half of it had collapsed, probably because of a bomb, but the other half seemed sturdy enough. They needed somewhere to hole up and hope things would calm down.

“Cassian,” she said. “You’re bleeding.” There was a huge bloodstain spreading on his left thigh, and it was getting bigger much faster than it should be.

“It’s nothing,” he said, without looking.

“Shut up and let me look at it,” she said. “This isn’t nothing.” The cut was long and deep and ragged, and it was bleeding a _lot._

He glanced down at it and his face went a little pale. “No, that does look pretty bad,” he said. “Shit.”

“Pressure,” said Jyn, taking his hand and placing it just above the cut. “I’ve got bacta.” She opened her pack.

“Don’t waste it,” he said. “We can just—”

“I don’t have time to set up a fucking field hospital here, Cassian. Just shut up and let me do this before you fucking bleed to death.”

“I’m not going to bleed to death,” he said, but he let her dress it with a bacta patch, and then he took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay, you’re right. That feels a lot better.”

“I don’t know why you’re so stubborn,” she said. “It’s really annoying, do you know that?”

He shrugged. “Bacta was rare where I grew up,” he said. “We never had enough. So I just got used to only using it when it’s really life or death. For something like that, we would just clean it and sew it up.”

“And hope it doesn’t get infected.” She shook her head. “You think you can walk on that?”

“I can walk,” he said. “No problem.”

“And if you thought you might not be able to, would you tell me?”

That little half-smile that made something inside her twist up. “No,” he admitted.

“Then I say we wait here a little while longer and give that bacta a chance to work,” she said. “And that’s not a suggestion.” She leaned back against the wall.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What do you think is going on down here?” she asked.

“This is going on everywhere,” said Cassian. “Been crackdowns on every planet I’ve been to lately. I think they’re panicking.”

“Panicking?”

“Yeah. I think Yavin really rattled them. The Death Star was supposed to make them invincible, and then we go and destroy it right away, before most people even knew it existed. Barely even gotten the press release out. Looks bad for them. Makes them look weak. So they’re trying to prove they haven’t lost control.”

“Have they? Lost control?”

“I don’t know if they ever really had control to begin with. It’s a big galaxy. A lot of places out on the Rim, the galactic government never really existed out there in the first place, even when it was the Republic. You think about a place like Tatooine, there’s never been any law out there. Gangster territory.”

“Is there really much of a difference?” she asked. “Between gangsters and the Empire?”

A little twitch of a smile. “Less and less every day. I prefer the gangsters; you can usually pay them off.”

“You’re from the Rim,” she said, “aren’t you?”

“Fest,” he said.

“I’ve been there,” she said.

“You have?” he sounded surprised.

“With Saw. Seven, eight years ago, maybe?”

“You’ve been there more recently than I have, then.”

“Do you miss it?”

He shrugged. “Not really. Sometimes, I guess. Mostly bad memories there. But, you know. It’s home.”

Home, she thought. She didn’t remember much about that trip to Fest; she’d been thirteen or fourteen, maybe, at the most. Mostly she remembered that it was cold and crowded. But somehow it was easy to picture Cassian there; easy to see how that bitterly cold, ruined city could shape a man like him. She wondered what he’d been like when he was younger. The children she’d seen on Fest had all looked hungry. There was something hungry about Cassian, too.

“I don’t really even have a homeworld,” said Jyn. “I think we lived on Coruscant for a while, and then we moved to… somewhere.”

“Lah’mu,” said Cassian. 

She looked at him, startled.

“How did you—”

“Research,” he said. “When we were looking for you. Seems like a nice place. Temperate climate, low population density. The opposite of Fest in every way.”

Somehow or other his hand had found hers again. She didn’t pull it away.


	11. what it takes to survive like that

“You think we’ll ever go on a mission where everything goes right?” asked Cassian, and she laughed.

“Well, that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?”

They made the jump into hyperspace and Cassian leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

“How’s the leg?” she asked. He’d had to lean on her a little as they’d made their way back, but he said it was more because he felt a little dizzy than out of any pain. He was absolutely drenched in blood, which explained why he’d be feeling lightheaded. She’d been a little worried that the blood would attract attention, but there had been several bomb detonations that morning, so there were a lot of injured people on the streets. No one had looked twice.

He shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

She laughed again. “I know. I was there.” He opened his eyes and gave her one of his rare smiles. “You look like a crime scene,” she told him. “Go get cleaned up. Do you need any help?”

“I think I can manage,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”

She gave him twenty minutes or so of privacy and then went back to the cabin to check on him. He was sitting on the bunk, still in his bloody clothes, with a sheepish look on his face. “I, uh, can’t get my boots off,” he said. “Every time I try to bend that way…”

“You idiot,” she said. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Stubborn,” he said.

She helped him get his boots off. “Have you got it from here?” she asked. Please let him have it from here, she thought.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah I think so. Can I just…” He stood up and leaned a little of his weight on her shoulder. “Sorry. My balance.”

They both carefully avoided looking at each other as he tried to take the bloody pants off. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I can’t seem to— I think it’s stuck to my leg.”

“Sit down,” she said. Damn it, damn it, damn it, _damn it._ Was the universe fucking with her?

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. Could this possibly get more awkward? “Yeah, it’s stuck. Do you have any blood _left?_ Let me grab a towel.”

She wet the cloth and tried to loosen the dried blood that was holding the fabric to his skin. “Okay,” she said. “I think I got it.” She was able to tug his pants down and off, looking anywhere but at him. “There we go,” she said, trying to keep her tone utterly disinterested. She handed him the wet towel so he could clean the rest of the dried blood off his leg.

“Thanks,” he said, not looking at her.

“Of course,” said Jyn. “You need to be more careful, you know.” She sat down at the other end of his bunk. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

“That’s always been the plan,” said Cassian.

“Has it?”

He nodded. “More or less. I never thought I was coming back from Scarif, did you?”

“Not really, no.”

“Do you remember how we got out of there?” he asked. “I barely remember a thing after I fell. Just a couple of… images.”

“What images?” she asked.

“You, mostly,” he said, and then he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say when you say that.”

“Neither do I.” He leaned forward, rested his head in his hands. 

“You should get some rest,” she told him. “You lost a lot of blood.”

“Yeah,” he said, absently, like his mind was somewhere else. She started to stand up, but he reached for her hand, kept her from leaving. “Jyn,” he said, “can I tell you something? Honestly?”

“I don’t know,” said Jyn. “Can you? Are you capable of honesty?”

He stared at the floor, brow furrowed. “I don’t know,” he said, slowly. “I don’t have a lot of practice with it. I’d like to… to try. If that’s okay.”

“Well?” She sat back down, extricated her hand from his, crossing her arms and preparing to be disappointed.

It took him a minute to get started. “My mother died when I was six,” he said. “I was there. It was… ugly. I remember…” He stopped himself. “It was bad. And my father… he’d always been political, but he went over the edge then, joined a resistance cell and brought me along. Then he died too, maybe a year later. Maybe less.” He lapsed into silence.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

“I'm trying to… explain,” he said. “Why I am like I am. My whole family was dead before I turned eight. I never learned how to…”

“We all had shit childhoods, Cassian,” she said. “I watched my mother die, too.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said. “What happened to her?”

“It was when they came to take my father away. My mother came after them with a blaster, and they shot her.”

He gave her an inscrutable look. “You must take after her.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know.”

“You were eight years old?”

“Something like that,” she said.

“And then you went to live with Gerrera.”

“Yeah.”

“So then you know… you know what I’m talking about.” 

“I’m not sure I do, no.”

“What it takes,” he said. “To survive. Like that. Every time you start to get close to someone, to care about someone, then they’re gone. It’s too much.”

“So you stop caring about anybody,” she said.

“It works,” he said. “Or it did. Until I… until I met you. And now… I don’t know what to do. I’m starting to think…”

“Think what?” She tried to squash the little tendril of hope uncurling in her chest.

“I’m starting to think,” he said again, slowly, and thoughtfully, “that even if… even if I never saw you again for the rest of my life, I would still be thinking about you. And wondering.” He kept staring at the floor, brow furrowed like he was concentrating hard. “If maybe I could have… if _we_ could have. If I’d just been a little… a little braver.”

Quiet fell over the cabin. He gave her a little sidelong look. Something about it was almost funny: the shy, nervous duck of the head as he looked at her. It made him seem much younger than he really was. Like a boy who liked a girl for the first time. It seemed comically out of place on this man. She didn’t know what to say. This was what she’d been waiting for, wasn’t it? What she’d been wanting? But she couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response.

After a moment he went on. “But maybe it’s too late for that. Maybe you don’t even like me anymore.”

“I do,” she said. “I do like you. But how can I trust that you’re not going to change your mind again tomorrow? You keep… When you were hurt, you told me that you thought you could love me. Now you’re hurt again. How am I supposed to believe that tomorrow you’re not going to say you were just delirious from blood loss and I shouldn’t take any of it seriously?”

“I guess you can’t,” he said, quietly. “And I can’t… I can’t blame you.”

“You know I really kind of wish you were wearing pants right now,” she said, and he laughed. “Did you just laugh?” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before.”

“I guess I don’t do it very often,” he said. 

She looked up at him. He had that expression on his face again. It was unbearable. His face was coming closer to hers, and she saw his eyes searching her face, looking for something: permission, maybe, or its opposite. She felt almost frozen. She wanted him to kiss her _so much,_ but it was going to be so much worse when he changed his mind again. She let her eyes close. His lips just barely brushed against hers. She pulled away, shaking her head.

“You can’t… You can’t just kiss me and it’s all going to go away,” she said, her voice shaking. “I need some… time. To see if I can trust you.”

“You don’t trust me?” 

“I trust you with my life, Cassian. But I can’t trust you with my heart when you keep breaking it.” She stood up, wiped a hand over her face, because she was crying, for some stupid reason. “I think you should get some rest,” she said. “And we’ll talk about it later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi to those who have been following along — just a note to let you know that I am needing to take a short break from the daily updates for a while. Stuff is weird right now as we all know, and for whatever reason my brain has decided to make posting this story a locus of anxiety instead of a source of fun and joy so I'm taking a break to recenter, do some non-fanfic projects, and hopefully be able to come back to this in the near future feeling better about it.
> 
> Most likely this will end up being such a short break that writing this whole note about it will seem like overkill, but committing publicly to taking a break helps me ensure that I _actually_ take it.
> 
> Thanks, take care, and see you soon. <3 -kate


	12. my heart when you keep breaking it

He woke up from a deep sleep; deeper than he could usually manage. The first thing he did was check to see if Jyn was in the other bunk, but she wasn’t. She must be in the cockpit, then. He lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling. He’d finally cracked. Finally told her. And now that he had, it felt like it had been inevitable, like he had always been going to tell her eventually, and could have saved them both a lot of anguish if he’d just done it a year ago, or six months ago, or really any time before now.

Now what?

All of the reasons that he couldn’t have a romantic relationship were still true. Nothing had changed. Except that everything had changed, because he’d told her the truth. And she didn’t trust him, because he kept breaking her heart. That’s what she’d said. _I can’t trust you with my heart when you keep breaking it._

He had no idea how to begin repairing that trust. Or if it was even a good idea to try.

He sat up, peeled the bacta patch back from where the gash had been in his thigh. All healed; nothing to show there had ever been a wound except for the shiny newness of the skin. That would fade quickly, and it would be like it never happened.

There was something disturbing about how thoroughly bacta could erase the evidence of an injury like that. A tear in the flesh that large and deep should leave a scar, but if there would be any scarring at all, it would be so faint no one but Cassian would ever know it was there. 

Back home, where bacta had been rare and precious, reserved only for the most serious injuries, everyone had scars. They’d been sources of pride; like the way the old Republic military people cared about rank and insignia. Every scar was proof of your commitment, of your sacrifice.

Sacrifice, he thought. What hadn’t he sacrificed for this cause? Not his life; not yet, but almost everything else.

He cleaned himself up, got dressed. He wanted to see Jyn, but he didn’t know what he could possibly say when he did. He took a deep breath, went into the cockpit.

She was sitting in her seat — in the copilot’s seat — with her knees bent and her feet up on the control panel. She glanced at him when he came in.

“Hi,” she said. “I see you’ve put trousers on. You must be feeling better?”

“I could take them off again, if you want,” he said. She just looked at him with her mouth in a straight line. “It was a joke.” 

“Since when do you make jokes?”

“I’ve made them before. You just didn’t know that’s what I was doing.” He sat down in the pilot’s seat. Things were off to a great start, weren’t they?

“Hm,” said Jyn. “Well, go ahead.”

“With what?”

“Shall I do it for you?” she asked, with a note of bitterness in her voice. “‘Jyn, I know I said some things yesterday but you see, I just can’t, it’s not possible, I’m never going to change and I’m just going to keep fucking you around until you finally grow up and figure out that it’s never going to happen.’ How’s that?” She gave him a steely glare.

That’s what she thought of him. And it wasn’t any worse than he deserved. He looked down at his hands. “No,” he said quietly. “That’s not what I was going to say at all.”

“Right,” said Jyn. 

“I’ve been treating you badly,” he said, struggling. “I know it. I’m sorry. I’m… scared.” Saying this made him feel like he might throw up.

“Scared of what?” asked Jyn. She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking the other way, out the window.

“Of… everything. I’ve never,” — he had to fight to get the next word out — _“felt_ anything like this before. And there’s just so _much_ of it, I don’t know how to— what to do with it.”

She looked at him for just a moment, and he lowered his eyes, afraid of what she might see there, and then he remembered looking into her eyes on Scarif, that long trip down from the tower, feeling like she could see all the way into his soul. How he had felt, for a few minutes, as if he were whole, as if all those places where he’d been broken had been mended, as if everything he’d been through, and everything he’d done, had been worth it, because they’d brought him there, to that moment with her. 

She didn’t say anything. Maybe she never would. Maybe it really was too late.

“Do you think,” he asked, slowly. “Is there anything I could do, that would… that would convince you that I mean it?”

“I believe that you mean it. Right now. I just don’t think I can believe that you’re still going to mean it later. After we land. Tomorrow, next week.”

He didn’t know what else to say. What did someone say, in this situation? What were you supposed to do? All he knew how to do was manipulate people, not how to talk to them honestly.

“You said you needed time,” he said. “How much time?”

“I don’t know. You know I’m not any less scared than you are.”

“You don’t seem scared,” he said softly.

“Of course I am. Everyone I ever cared about died, or abandoned me, too. You’re not the only one who—” The ship’s computer made the little beep that meant they’d be dropping out of hyperspace in ten minutes, and Jyn stopped talking, sighed heavily.

“Did I really,” he said in a tiny voice, “tell you that I could love you?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No,” he whispered. “I don’t remember _saying_ it. But I remember… thinking it.”

“Well,” said Jyn. “You said it.” She rubbed her hand on her neck, like she was sore. “Let’s just… talk about it later, okay?”


	13. grist for the rumor mill

But they didn’t talk about it later. Now she was the one avoiding him. Was this how she had felt all this time? It was pretty terrible. 

He saw her one evening, with Shara Bey, that pilot she’d been hanging out with so much, and he stood there for a moment watching them from across the room, and Shara noticed him, leaned over to say something to Jyn. Jyn looked over, her expression unreadable.

He walked over to them. It was that or leave, and he wanted to at least try to talk to her. The women both sat there and looked at him, but nobody spoke.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” said Shara. She was grinning like this was the best thing to happen to her in months. The pilots were all such gossips. Didn’t they have anything better to do?

He turned his attention back to Jyn. “Can I… talk to you?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” said Jyn.

He looked at Shara again, then back to Jyn.

“Well?” said Jyn. “You had something to say?”

“Can I talk to  _ you?” _ he said. “Just you?”

“I’m with my friend right now,” said Jyn.

“Why don’t you join us?” asked Shara. “Plenty to go around.” She tilted the bottle at him.

This was humiliating. He sat down. Shara offered him a drink but he shook his head. Jyn looked at him for a moment. He tried to figure out what he could possibly say.

“Actually,” said Jyn. “I’ve just remembered I have somewhere I’m supposed to be.” She stood up and he watched her leave.

“Wow,” said Shara. “What did you  _ do?” _

“Shut up,” he said.

“You sure you don’t want some of this?” she asked.

“Yeah, fine, sure, give me one.” He might as well make some bad decisions. That’s what normal people did. It had gone so well the last time. He drank it too fast and started coughing, and Shara laughed.

“Do they not drink on your planet?” she asked.

“Of course they do,” he said. “It’s just me that doesn’t. How do you people stand this stuff?”

“By drinking a lot of it,” she said. “Until you get used to it. So: do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” he said.

“I figured you would say that,” she said. “But I had to ask.”

“Did you?” he said.  _ “Have _ to ask?”

“Yep. I’ve already invested a lot of time into this thing.”

“What thing?”

“The you and Jyn thing.”

“Are you incapable of minding your own business?” he asked.

“Pretty much, yeah. Here. Drink more, you’ll feel better.” 

“I’m not sure that’s true,” he said.

“I’ve done a lot of studies on the matter,” she said. “I’m kind of an expert. Drink.” He drank.

He was starting to feel fuzzy; it came on pretty fast. Maybe he did feel a little better. “Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

“I’m  _ dying _ for you to ask me a question, Andor,” said Shara.

“You and Jyn are friends?”

“That’s more of a statement than a question. But yeah.”

“That wasn’t… that wasn’t the main question.” He took another swallow of the liquid. “Do you talk to her about… me?”

“She’s almost as tightlipped as you are,” said Shara. “And anything she  _ did _ tell me, I’m not going to tell you.”

“I’m don’t expect you to tell me anything,” he said.

“Well, this is a surprise.” Samaira’s voice, behind them.

“When did you get back, Sam?” asked Shara.

“Recently. What’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” said Cassian. “I’m leaving.”

“You don’t have to leave,” said Shara.

“Yeah, don’t leave yet, the show’s about to start,” said Samaira. “They’re right behind me, I heard them from down the hall.” 

Shara laughed. “What is it this time?”

“What is it, ever? I can’t believe they’re still doing this. How long is it going to take?”

“Sam’s mad she lost her money,” said Shara. “There’s a little betting pool going for how long it takes the princess and Solo to finally get together, and Sam bet a month. She doesn’t understand the subtleties of the human heart.”

Cassian made a face. “What is wrong with you people? Why would you bet on that?” The chilling thought that they might be betting about him and Jyn arose in the back of his mind.

Then he could hear the shouting and Solo came through the door with the princess right behind him, yelling at him. This wasn’t an uncommon scene around the base. 

“‘The subtleties of the human heart,’” said Samaira, rolling her eyes. “You’re so soft, Bey.”

The fight was still going on, and Cassian was watching it, frowning.

“I don’t care  _ what _ you do, Captain!” snapped the princess.

“Well you’ve got a funny way of showing it,” shouted Solo.

“Oh, fuck off.” She turned on her heel, obviously fuming, and started like she was going to walk away. She glared over at the three of them who were watching, shot another angry glance back at Solo, and then marched right over to Cassian and said, “I need to talk to you.”

“Fine,” he said, grateful for the excuse to get away from Samaira. “Thanks for the drink,” he said to Shara, and he got up and followed the princess out.

“I don’t really need to talk to you,” said the princess. “I just needed to get away from  _ him.” _

“I figured,” said Cassian. “I needed an excuse to get away from them, too, so it worked out.”

She gave him a thoughtful look. “You seem different.”

He shrugged. He didn’t know the princess that well, but he’d known her a little; he’d worked with her father a lot, back before Scarif, and she had usually been around. When the scrutiny on her father had gotten intense, Cassian had occasionally used the princess to get a message to him, if he didn’t have another way. She was all right.

“But it’s none of my business is it?”

“Not really,” he said. “But that’s never stopped you before.”

“True,” she said. “Let me walk you back to your room. You seem a little unsteady.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said.

“No, but I’m going to do it anyway, so you may as well not argue with me,” she said. “I’m very stubborn; ask anyone.”

He couldn’t think of a reason to fight about it, so he started walking back toward his quarters. The princess talked most of the way, and she followed him in when they got there.

“So what’s going on?” she asked. “You can tell me.”

He shook his head. “Nobody on this base can mind their own business. It’s incredible.”

“I’m insatiably curious,” said the princess. “I always have been. It’s my greatest flaw.”

“I don’t know if it’s your  _ greatest _ flaw,” he said. But there was something about her that was easy and comfortable, even though he didn’t know her that well. She felt trustworthy. And maybe it would feel good to admit it to someone. “I fell in love with someone,” he said. “But it took me too long to figure it out, and now she hates me.”

He blinked his eyes a couple of times. It  _ did _ feel a little better to say it out loud. Not much, but a little.

“Is it me?” asked the princess, and he stared at her in surprise and confusion for a moment. “I’m kidding,” she said. “Obviously it isn’t me. It’s Jyn Erso, right?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t  _ hate _ you,” said the princess.

“I think she might.”

“You know, I always thought you and I were going to get together,” she said with a sweet little smile.

“What?” he said, genuinely surprised. “Why would you think that?”

“Okay, no offense taken,” she said. “You mean to tell me it’s never even crossed your mind?”

“Not really,” he said. “You’re a princess.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Everybody gets so hung up on that. Princesses have the same equipment as everyone else, you know. Yeah, I had a whole plan and everything.”

“A plan?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Mm-hmm. To seduce you. Never got to put it into action, because, you know. The world ended.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s too bad.”

“Isn’t it?” She looked up at him, biting her lip just a little in a way he was pretty sure was calculated. It wasn’t ineffective. “Do you think it would have worked?”

“Probably,” he admitted. “You didn’t need a plan, though; you could have just asked.”

“Oh really?” She was getting closer and closer to him, looking up at him with a smile that was both wry and playful.

“Hey,” he said gently. “I think you should go, now, princess.”

“You sure?”

“I just told you I’m in love with someone else,” he reminded her.

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m not asking you to fall in love with me.” She brushed her fingers along his hand. “And didn’t you also tell me that she hates you?”

He had said that, hadn’t he? “I’m not looking to give her any more reasons to.”

“Well I don’t see why she ever needs to find out,” said the princess. “Why don’t you let me take your mind off of it?” 

He shook his head. “No one on this base can do anything without everybody knowing about it. And I’m… No. If you’d asked me a year ago… but not now. I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “It was worth a shot. I guess I’ll go. Take care of yourself, Captain.” She turned to go, but at the door she turned back. “Have you  _ told _ her that you love her?”

He shifted from foot to foot. Why had he ever said anything? “Kind of,” he said.

“‘Kind of’ means no,” said the princess. “You should tell her. See what she says.”


	14. what if we stopped talking

She couldn’t articulate, even to herself, why she was avoiding Cassian. She was angry, and she was hurt about all those months, almost a _year,_ of being ignored and rejected. Now he’d changed his mind; now he wanted to pretend he hadn’t spent most of a year trying to push her away, and she just didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. He shouldn’t get to just decide, unilaterally, that they were going to be together now.

She was punishing him. It was stupid, because of course she still wanted the same thing she’d always wanted, which now he said he wanted, too. Theoretically, it should be easy now, or at least easier: they both wanted the same thing, which was each other. So why not? But she just couldn’t. She couldn’t shake her fear that he’d pull the rug out from under her again. How would she bear it, if he changed his mind again?

Occasionally she would see him in the halls, and he always looked at her, his expression as unreadable as it usually was, but he’d stopped trying to talk to her.

Then, another mission. Just the two of them, again. Cassian was quiet as they loaded up the ship, as they took off. She looked out the window and watched the planet recede beneath them, watched the blue sky become a field of stars. Like travelling from day to night instantly. 

Cassian was putting in the calculations. “Gonna be a long trip,” he said. “Almost three days.”

She didn’t say anything, just kept gazing out the window. She felt him looking at her, but she didn’t turn her head. He exhaled, heavy, and the ship entered hyperspace.

“Jyn,” he said. “Are you ever going to speak to me again?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know.”

“You said we would talk,” he said slowly. “But we haven’t talked.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said. “Maybe if I do, I will.”

“What if I have something to say to you?”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“You can’t just—”

“Yes I can,” she said.

“Fine. Fine.”

“Oh, give it a rest,” she snapped, standing up. “Don’t sit there and pretend you’re so fucking heartbroken, you liar.” She turned and left, heading back toward the cabin, sick of hearing his stupid voice.

“What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?” he half-shouted, following her.

“It means that _everyone_ saw you take the princess back to your quarters a few weeks ago. Don’t bother denying it.”

“I did not ‘take her back to my quarters,’” he said. “She followed me there, and she was there for _five minutes._ ”

“Well I’m so _sorry_ you didn’t have enough time to really _enjoy_ yourself,” she snarled.

“You’re not listening to me!” he shouted. _“Nothing_ like that happened.”

“Yeah, right,” she said, scoffing. “You must think I'm an idiot.”

“I will tell you exactly what happened,” he said, voice raised. “She asked me what was wrong, and I said that I was in love with you but that you hate me, and she asked if I wanted her to take my mind off of it, and I said _no,_ and then she _left.”_

“You said what?” She turned and looked at him for the first time.

“I said no,” he repeated.

“Not that part,” said Jyn. “Before that. Did you say you’re... what did you say?” She _must_ have misheard him.

There was a long pause as they stared at each other. Then, reluctantly, he spoke. “I said that I was… in love. With you.”

Her mind felt like it had gone completely blank. Like it was empty. She just stared at him. He looked down, turned away. Finally she managed to speak. “Since when?”

“I don’t know,” said Cassian, in a low, quiet voice. “For a while. I never…” He was quiet for a moment, and then, with what looked like an enormous effort, went on: _“felt_ like this before, so I didn’t _know_ that’s what it was.” He glanced at her, then away again, scrunched his eyes closed. “You’re… Something happened to me, when I met you.”

“You’ve said that before,” she said. “But you never explain what it _means.”_

“I don’t _know_ what it means! That’s what I’m trying to— I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.” He slumped down onto his bunk, like he was too tired to keep standing. He was breathing really hard, and a little too fast.

“Yeah,” said Jyn. “I can tell.” She didn’t know what else to say. This all felt like uncharted space, like they were lost, or about to get lost. “I _don’t_ hate you,” she said, finally.

The corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “I tell you I love you, and you say you don’t hate me. I guess that’s the best I can hope for.”

“It’s going to take me a minute to…” She leaned back against one of the bulkheads for support. “You can’t just… say something like that and expect— After everything.”

He was resting his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor. “You’re never going to forgive me,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “For being so stupid.”

“Cassian,” she said, and he flinched a little. “You spent a year telling me that it could never happen.”

“I know. I was… well I _wasn’t_ wrong. I _shouldn’t_ have a… a relationship like that.” Again the long pause, again the struggle to get the word out. “It’s not safe, it’s not… wise. But I…” He sighed, dropped his head into his hands. “I don’t know what to do. But I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. I didn’t mean to tell you. It just sort of came out. I’m sorry.”

“Well that’s the problem, isn’t it?” said Jyn sadly. “You couldn’t say it to me on purpose, could you? You can’t even say ‘relationship’ without looking like you’re going to be sick. How can I— if you can’t even say how you feel?”

“I’m _trying,”_ he said, miserably. “I’ve been the way I am for a long time, Jyn. I don’t know how to be any other way.” He fell backward onto his bunk, staring up at the ceiling.

He _was_ trying. He was trying so hard, and she could see it on his face, and why was she still punishing him when he was already so miserable? It’s not fair, she thought to herself, to push him so hard. She’d wanted him to prove he wasn’t just fucking around this time, and hadn’t he done that? She crossed the small space and sat down on the edge of his bunk. Like she had when he was in the infirmary, when he was drugged and sleepy and sweet, when he told her that she was beautiful and brave. She exhaled heavily, unsteadily. 

“I feel like we’ve been having the same conversation over and over again for months,” she said. “I’m so tired of it, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he whispered. 

“What if we just… stopped talking?” she asked softly. “For a little while?” She leaned over him, hand on his face.

“Isn’t that what we usually do?” he asked. “Stop talking?” He reached up and touched her face. “Jyn,” he whispered. “Jyn, I…”

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” she whispered, and she kissed him. Kissing was easier than talking. At first, he seemed to yield underneath her, letting her take control, but pretty soon his hands were on her hips and he was rolling her over onto her back. She rolled her head back, lifted her hips up, permitted a little moan to escape her throat. 

He touched her face, looking at her with that look in his eyes that scared her so much. “You’re amazing,” he whispered.

She kissed him again, pulled him down on top of her, luxuriating in the feeling of his body covering hers. She hooked one leg around him, pulling him closer, closer. He pulled back and looked at her, smiling a little.

“What?” she said.

“I was just thinking,” he said. “We’re going to be on this ship for another sixty hours, before we get where we’re going.”

“I know,” she said. “So what?”

“So,” he said, leaning down and kissing her neck, “we’ve got nothing but time. I was just thinking about… how to use it.”

She smiled and pulled his face down to kiss him again. “I thought we were working on that,” she said.

“Mmm-hmm,” he said. “But I was just thinking…” He lowered his gaze a little, like he was shy. His cheeks felt hot to the touch. Was he _blushing?_

“You were just thinking,” she echoed.

“I was just thinking,” he said again, “that I don’t want to… to rush. We could… take our time.”

She stroked her hands through his hair. “You want to take our time?” she repeated.

“I want to do it right,” he said. “I don’t want to just… as if you were just anybody. You’re… it’s… special.” His gaze flickered back to her and then away again. “Is that stupid?”

“No,” she said. “It’s not. It’s sweet. Who knew you could be sweet?”

He laughed nervously. “Not me,” he said.

“Well,” she said, “if you want to take your time, that’s fine with me.”


	15. taking our time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we did it! we made it through the worst of the angst (not all of it... this is still written by me) and now...
> 
> well, this chapter is, uh, mostly sex 😳

He did take his time with her, and she let him, lying there underneath him with her eyes closed and her head thrown back while he kissed his way across her skin. He’d been craving this for such a long time; he was going to make it last as long as he could; he was going to savor it. Every time he peeled back a little of her clothing, he lavished kisses on the little bit of skin he’d exposed. Going so slowly. Paying close attention to what she did, how she reacted: when she shivered, when she made a sound, when her hips lifted up off the bunk. He wanted to memorize her body by touch, by taste.

He’d undressed her, slowly, and she didn’t have anything on anymore, except a pair of underwear. He left those on her, for now. Eventually, he thought, he would pull them off and then he’d—

“Cassian,” she whimpered. “Cassian, _please.”_ He’d never heard anything sexier. Never wanted anything more than he wanted to hear her say his name like that.

“Say that again,” he whispered up against her ear, almost begging. “Say my name again. Tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

She squirmed underneath him, made a little growling sound. “Cassian,” she said again. “I need…”

He wanted her so much it almost hurt. He let one hand come up the inside of her thigh and stroked between her legs. She let out a shaky “ohh.” He watched her face, all flushed and beautiful. “Yes,” she whispered, “yes yes, no, don’t _stop—”_ Her eyes flew open and she gave him a frustrated look. “Don’t you _dare_ stop now,” she said. “You’ve been teasing me for hours; how do you have this kind of patience?” 

“It hasn’t been hours,” he said, smiling a little.

“You put your hand right back where it was or I will— _ohhhhhh.”_

"Like this?" He let his fingers slip beneath her underwear, and breathed her name out, reverently. She felt so _ready._

He let one finger gently slide just a little way into her and she rolled her head back, arching her back. “Don’t you dare stop until I tell you to,” she said, breath catching in her throat a little.

“Yes, ma’am.” He kissed his way down her body. “Do you want me to—” he started.

 _“Yes,”_ she said, before he’d finished speaking. _“Please._ Hurry up. Sometime today would be lovely.”

He couldn’t help a little laugh from coming up out of him. “You didn’t let me finish,” he said, kissing along the top of her pubic bone. “Do you want hands, or mouth, or both?” He swirled his slippery fingers around the most sensitive spot and she made a tiny sound as her hips lifted up to meet him.

“Both,” she gasped.

He pulled that last little bit of clothing down and off, but for a brief moment all he could do was look at her, legs open, eyes closed, and the thought of how much trust she was showing him shook him to the core.

She opened her eyes. “What are you doing?” she asked. “I told you—”

“Sorry,” he said. “I just… you’re incredible.”

“Cassian,” she said. _“Please.”_

He lowered his head, kissing up along the inside of her thigh, stopping to gently rub the rough hair on his cheeks against that sensitive skin, making her squirm, and then settled between her thighs to explore with lips and tongue and fingers, still going so slowly, trying to learn her, to learn exactly what she wanted, what she needed. One, then two fingers up inside her where she was so hot and wet and ready. Her legs over his shoulders, one of her hands in his hair and the other clutching the bedding underneath them as he brought her closer and closer, and then, at last, it happened, and she went tight everywhere and then fell back, trembling and gasping for air.

He looked up at her. She was beautiful. Her hair had fallen out of the little knot she wore it in and was spread out under her on the bunk, and she was all pink and flushed, breathing hard, lips parted

“Better?” he asked, kissing her thighs and then slowly up along her belly, her breasts, her neck.

“Mmmmmm,” she sighed, and then: “Lie down. On your back.” 

It sounded like an order, and Cassian (almost) always followed orders. She straddled his hips, looking down at him and running her hands along his chest. “When you say you’re going to take your time,” she said, “you really mean it, don’t you?”

He nodded, smiling.

“That,” she said, “took forever.”

“But you liked it,” he said, running his fingers along her thighs.

“Mmm-hmm.” She unhooked his belt, unzipped his pants, pulled them down. “But I have this terrible feeling that if I let you set the pace, I’m never going to get what I really, really want.” She put a hand around his cock and squeezed, gently.

“What do you really really want?” he managed. 

“What do you think I really, _really_ want?” Now she was teasing him, slowly rubbing herself up and down his length, wet and warm and so enticing he couldn’t think about anything else, closing his eyes and trying to breathe.

“Open your eyes,” said Jyn. “Look at me.”

He opened them, and she was looking at him very intently and seriously. “Do you swear,” she said, “that this is for real?”

He nodded. “It is.”

“Promise me,” she said. “Say it and mean it.”

He reached up to touch her face. “I promise,” he whispered. ‘I promise it’s for real.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and let out a long breath. “If you’re lying to me,” she said, “I’ll never forgive you.”

“I’m not. I promise I’m not.”

“You’d better not be,” she said, and she took him in her hand, and a moment later he felt the luscious warmth of her body wrapped around him, and he could hardly draw breath, it felt so good.

For a moment they just stayed like that, barely moving. She had her hands on his chest and his were on her hips. She was perfect. This moment was perfect. He could stay like this forever and die happy. He closed his eyes and tried to match his breath to hers.

“Open your eyes,” said Jyn. “Open your eyes and look at me.” She leaned down, taking his face in her hands, and then she started to move.

“Jyn,” he gasped. “Jyn.” This was different — better — than any sex he’d had before. Was _this_ what being in love with someone was like? He touched her face. This was happening, this was _happening,_ and he couldn’t believe it, it couldn’t be true that he was this lucky, this had to be a dream; he ran his hands down her back, so much gorgeous bare skin, and his hands found her hips and pulled her closer, closer, and an incredulous little laugh fell out of his mouth, and she smiled and kissed him.

“Something funny?” she asked.

He shook his head, smiling. “No,” he whispered, running his fingers down her cheeks. “No, I think I’m just… happy.” And then he laughed again, and now she was laughing, too, and she kissed him and he had his hands in her hair and this was the only thing he wanted to do for the rest of his life, just this, and every single thought went out of his head and there was nothing, nothing, but the two of them, wrapped up in each other.


	16. the galaxy's biggest idiot

She curled up under his arm, resting her head on his chest and listening to the rapid thump-thump of his heart. His fingers were idly, lightly running up and down her hip and upper thigh, sending little shivers through her body. She was exhausted, but in the best possible way.

“Jyn,” he murmured. He sounded sleepy.

“Shh,” she said. “I don’t want to start talking yet; we’ll just end up fighting. Let’s not ruin it.”

“Whatever you want,” he said, and he pulled her a little closer. She let her eyes close. Maybe she’d fall asleep. That would be nice, wouldn’t it, to fall asleep in each other’s arms? Did things like that really happen? The sound of his heart was starting to slow and normalize. 

She was getting cold. She started to sit up so she could find her shirt and Cassian made a little sound. “Where you going?” he asked.

“Just to get my clothes,” said Jyn.

“Nooo,” he mumbled. “Why? I like you like this.” He hung on to her waist.

“I’m cold,” she said, laughing.

“We’ll get under the blankets then,” he suggested.

“We’re going to have to get up to do that,” she told him.

“Okay, okay.” He managed to pull back the blanket and get them both under it, wrapping his arms back around her. “See? That’s better than clothes.” He kissed her shoulder. “If you’re cold, skin to skin is the best way to get warm.”

She laughed a little. “Very practical, Captain.”

“Mm-hm. Where I’m from,” he said, sleepily, “it’s always cold. So I know.”

“You spent a lot of time warming up cold girls skin to skin, did you?” she asked, and immediately regretted asking when she felt his body go tense. She’d known talking again was a mistake. So she kissed him, hoping it would distract him, and after a moment she felt him start to relax again.

It  _ was _ lovely and warm under the blanket with him, with his arm over her waist and his face close to hers. The question  _ what now _ passed through her mind but she let it pass. Worry about it later. Don’t spoil the moment. Her eyelids felt heavy so she let them fall closed. His breath was slow and steady, like maybe he’d fallen asleep. She blinked her eyes open again so she could see his face. He was beautiful. 

“I’m the galaxy’s biggest idiot, aren’t I?” he mumbled, without opening his eyes.

“Why do you say that?”

“I wasted this whole year. We could have done this so many times by now.”

She laughed, brushed his hair out of his eyes. It was getting long. He opened his eyes and gave her a sleepy little smile that reminded her of the infirmary. She felt sleepy, too, so she snuggled in closer. “Shh,” she said again, putting her finger up to his lips. “No talking.” She watched his eyes fall closed again, and then she let her own eyes close and felt herself drift away.


	17. people like us

It took him a moment to remember why Jyn was next to him, and he felt a flood of confusing, overwhelming emotions when he saw her face. That’s right. That’s right. It had finally happened. And then afterward he had actually fallen asleep with her in the bed next to him and his arm draped over her waist. He hadn’t actually _slept_ with someone he was sleeping with since he was in his teens. Not since before he left home. All part of his plan to never fall in love with anyone. Well, that had been a failure, but he wasn’t sure he minded.

She was still asleep. He held still so he wouldn’t wake her. She was beautiful. He wondered how long they’d been sleeping. He felt surprisingly well rested. 

This could be your life, he thought to himself. Waking up to that face. It could. If you can get your shit together.

Don’t worry about it now, he thought. There’s no point in worrying about it now. Of course, this logic had never stopped him from worrying about anything before, and it didn’t seem like it was going to work this time, either.

He looked at her. She was so, so beautiful. He wanted to touch the little lock of hair that had fallen in her face. But he was starting to feel terror unfurling in his chest. What had he done?

He closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath. What are you afraid of? he asked himself. But he didn’t have an answer. 

She was starting to stir, and her eyes blinked open slowly. A little smile appeared on her lips. “Hi,” she said in a voice that was still thick with sleep.

“Hi,” he said, and now he reached over and touched that lock of hair he’d been looking at, moved it out of her face, savoring the feel of it against his fingers.

“What time is it?” asked Jyn.

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “But we’ve got plenty of time.”

“Mm,” she murmured, snuggling in closer to him. “Good.”

“Did you sleep okay?” he asked her.

“Mm-hmm. Did you?”

“I did. I’ve never _actually slept_ with somebody.”

“Never?”

“Not since I was… maybe fifteen, sixteen. Is that weird?”

“Probably not for people like us,” said Jyn.

People like us, he thought. Jyn understood. She'd grown up the same way he had. She knew what it was like. People like them had such short lives; there were hardly any of them left. Most of the people in the Alliance were idealists: they believed in the cause, but they hadn’t lived and breathed the war since childhood. They’d had lives before they got here. But war was the only thing Cassian had ever known.

Sometimes he heard his comrades talking about what they would do when the war was over. That was the biggest difference between him and the others, the unbridgeable gulf that existed between people like him and people like them: he couldn’t imagine the war ever ending, and even if it did, he couldn’t imagine himself living in that universe. He assumed he would die long before that ever happened.

He pulled Jyn a little closer and kissed her head. She made a sleepy little sound. This was nice, he thought. This was better than nice. Was this what he’d been missing out on, all this time? Could he have had this earlier, if he’d known enough to want it?

“Jyn,” he said in a whisper. “I want to try to… I want to try to say it to you on purpose.”

She tilted her head. “Okay,” she said. “Go ahead.”

He took a deep breath. He could do this. It was true, so why shouldn’t he say it? She wanted him to say it; she’d said that before. “I…” Another deep breath. This shouldn’t be so hard, should it? “...love you.” He exhaled, trembling.

“That was really hard for you, wasn’t it?” said Jyn, and he didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes and hugged her close and nodded. 

“Don’t say anything,” he said. “I don’t want you to say it just because I said it.”

“Okay,” she said in a small voice. 

“Now what happens?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve never… loved anyone, before,” he said uncertainly. “Are there… rules?”

She laughed a little. “You like rules, don’t you? Orders you can follow?”

A flood of guilty feelings. Following orders. “I like knowing what I’m expected to do,” he said. It felt inadequate. “I just don’t want to… do the wrong thing.”

“I guess we can come up with some rules,” said Jyn. “The first one is that we agree to be honest with each other.”

“Honesty,” he said.

“Do you think you can manage that?” she asked.

“Yes. I think so.” He would try. He’d spent most of his life perfecting the art of dishonesty. “What else?”

“Can we agree,” she said, “that it’s just you for me, and me for you? No other girls in your bed.”

Well that one was easy. “I don’t want any other girls in my bed,” he said.

“No boys, either,” she added.

“Nobody,” he agreed.

She hesitated for a moment before she said the next thing. “Not even for work, okay? I know it might make things a little harder but…”

“Not even for work,” he agreed immediately. “I always hated doing that anyway.” It wasn’t something he’d had to do _often,_ but there were times when it was the quickest or best way to get something from someone: make them feel special. It usually left him feeling a little grimy afterward. He wouldn’t miss it. There were a couple of contacts that he’d probably have to give up, but that wasn’t so bad. Every relationship with a contact ran its course eventually. Maybe he could pretend to die and send someone else to cultivate those relationships.

“Hey,” said Jyn. “Where’d you go just now?”

“Hm? Oh. I guess I was thinking about how to deal with— There’s not a _lot_ of them,” he added, stumbling over the words a little in his haste. “But there’s a couple people I’ll have to… to hand off to somebody else, probably, or else just drop altogether.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I know,” he said, and he felt his skin go all hot in an uncomfortable way. “It’s…”

She laughed a little, awkwardly. “Well, I did ask you to be honest.” 

He hid his face in the bunk. “You must think I’m—”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not like I’ve never… We all do things we’re not proud of.”

The idea of Jyn having to do _that_ made him want to break something. “I have a lot of them,” he said quietly. “Things I’m not proud of.”

“I know.” She ran a finger along his face.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think you do know. _That’s_ the least of it. I don’t know how I can… When I remember some of the things I’ve… I don’t know how you could possibly ever love someone like me. And I don’t know how I can love you and still do my job.” Now there was a flood of words that wanted to come out, a terrifying wave of _something_ that threatened to overwhelm him.

“Hey,” said Jyn gently. “You know I’ve done a lot of awful things, too, don’t you? You know what Saw was like.”

He nodded. He knew what Saw was like. It must have been hell, to be raised by that man. But Jyn had still become the kind of person who would try to save that little girl on Jedha, and he had become the kind of person who would let her die.

She took his face in her hands and kissed him, softly. “It’s okay,” she said again, and then they were tangled in each other, and he was on top of her and inside her and looking into her beautiful eyes as they moved together, slowly, clinging to her like otherwise he might float away into space.


	18. damaged people

They had sex a lot on that sixty hour trip. There wasn’t a whole lot else to do, and talking to each other too much felt dangerous. She knew they were going to start fighting again eventually, but she wanted to delay it as long as she could. Right now, everything was perfect. If she could just figure out a way to keep it like this forever.

She knew it wasn’t possible. They were both just as fucked up as they had been before. But Cassian was trying _so hard,_ so hard it made her heart ache. She hadn’t realized how much pain he’d been masking all this time; had thought he was just being stubborn or selfish or who-knows-what. In fact, he was terrified. If she was being honest with herself, so was she. Everyone she’d ever really cared about had died or disappeared. That was as true for her as it was for him. But until now, it hadn’t scared her the same way. Now that it was really happening, there was a wall of panic inside her that she couldn’t even look at. What would happen to them? How could two such damaged people ever have a real relationship? What if, when this journey was over and they got back to base, he changed his mind again? Or what if… They were fighting a war. There was no such thing as safety. How would she stand it, if she lost him now?

So they avoided talking about their feelings, and instead they had sex. He was eager to please and seemed to love being given directions; well, he _had_ said he liked to know what was expected of him. And he was patient; outrageously patient; he would tease her and tease her with his fingers and his mouth until she was out of her mind with desire, until she was absolutely _begging_ for it, and then he’d make her wait a little more before he finally gave her what she wanted. It was the most delicious torture. 

Still, you can only fill so many hours with sex. Eventually, they had to come up for air. They kept conversation to a minimum, and she learned to appreciate silence. 

There was a sweetness, almost an innocence to him which she had not guessed was there, and she began to understand why he had fought so hard to keep her away, to keep himself from showing that softness to her. Because it would be so easy for her to damage him, even accidentally. Now he was laid bare before her, like an animal who rolled onto its back, saying _I trust you. I trust you not to slit my throat._ The responsibility of it was dizzying.

Their mission went well, or at least better than any mission they’d done together before. Neither of them got hurt, and nobody died. They had a few tense conversations with contacts, and Jyn made some clean docs in exchange for some of the information and supplies they needed, and after a few days they were back on the ship heading back to base, another sixty hours.

“These forgeries really are great,” said Cassian, studying her work. “If I didn’t know they were fake I don’t think I could figure it out. I thought I was pretty good, but you’re an artist.”

She liked the admiration in his voice. “I’m sure yours are good,” she said.

“I haven’t gone to prison over it yet, so they must be okay,” he agreed.

“That was a fluke!” she said, laughing. “They never would have caught me if it weren’t for the other stuff.”

He was smiling, looking down. Had he always been so cute? “I know, I know,” he said. “You really are the best. I didn’t know you were Rallick till you mentioned her on Ord Mantell.”

“You knew Rallick?” she said, surprised.

“I knew _of_ her. Obviously we never met. And obviously I didn’t do my homework on her, or I would have known she was you.”

“You wouldn’t have figured it out,” she said.

“I can find anyone,” he said with a little smile. “I found you, Liana Hallick.”

“Was that you? How did you manage to pull that off? I thought I was pretty well hidden.”

“You were. Really well. I caught a couple of lucky breaks.”

“I’m glad you did,” she said. “I was going to die in that place.”

“I bet you would have figured something out,” said Cassian. “You’re resourceful.”

“I don’t know,” said Jyn. “I was pretty out of ideas by then. And hope. Hey,” she added, taking his hand and standing up. “Should we go to bed?”

A secret little smile on his face. “A little early for sleep, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t say sleep.”

He stood up and wrapped his arms around her. “Oh,” he said. “I’m not sure I follow. What else would we do in bed? You better spell it out for me.”

She laughed. She’d been getting glimpses of this playful side of Cassian every once in a while, and she liked it. She pressed her mouth against his ear and whispered a few ideas into it.

“Mmm,” he murmured. “I guess I could do that for you. If you really, really want.” His mouth covered hers and with his hands on her hips, he pushed her gently backward as he kissed her, so they stumbled their way out of the cockpit and into the cabin, shedding clothes as they went.

An hour or so later, she stretched her arms up over her head and sighed happily. “You are _really_ good at that,” she said.

Cassian laughed, that rare lovely sound. “Well,” he said, “I work hard at it.”

“I can tell.”

“There’s probably still room for improvement,” he said into her ear, and a delicious shiver went through her. “I’ll have to keep practicing.” He kissed down her neck and she let her eyes fall closed again.

“I wish we didn’t have to go back to base yet,” he murmured against her skin. “Can’t we think of an excuse to stay out here a little while longer? Somewhere else we need to go?”

“I don’t have any ideas,” said Jyn. “Why don’t you want to go back?”

“It’s going to be weird, isn’t it?” He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her with soft eyes.

“Is it?”

He looked a little nervous, looking away from her for a moment. “Just your friends, you know, they’re so nosy. You know they take bets on stuff like this?” 

“Stuff like this? What do you mean, ‘stuff like this?’”

“Your friend Bey said they were betting on when the princess and Solo would get together. And they’ve been… talking… about us all along. I just think they’re going to…”

“Oh,” she said. She did know about the pool on Solo and the princess, although she’d declined to participate. The gossip mill _was_ annoying, and she was anticipating some commentary when word got around that she and Cassian were finally doing this, but it was harmless, really. Just talk. “You don’t hang out with them anyway,” said Jyn. “So why do you care? People are always going to talk.”

“I just don’t like it,” said Cassian. “I don’t like people knowing my private business.”

“So what, you want to keep it a secret?”

“What? No. I didn’t say that.”

“Well what _are_ you saying, then?”

He hesitated. “Are you angry at me right now?” he asked.

“No. I’m just trying to understand.” She _was_ a little angry, though.

“You sound angry,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“We promised to be honest,” he said slowly. “You’re angry. What did I do?”

She sighed and sat up. He was looking at her with what looked like genuine confusion on his face. “You didn’t… _do_ anything. Just you said you don’t want anyone to _know._ Like you’re ashamed of it, or you want to hide it.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m not ashamed; of course I’m not. I didn’t say we should hide it. I just… don’t like people talking about me, and laughing at me.”

She shook her head. “They’re not going to be _laughing_ at you.”

“Yes they will. They already were.”

“So nothing’s going to change, then!” she said. “They’ll have a little fun with it for a couple of days and then they’ll move on to something else. Is it _that_ embarrassing to you?”

“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

He looked and sounded so distressed and confused that she felt a little badly, like she’d overreacted. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I just… I got scared you were going to change your mind on me again. It _is_ going to be a little awkward for a while. But it’ll pass.”

He nodded, reluctantly. “It’ll pass,” he repeated. It was quiet for a little while, and Jyn lay back down and let him wrap his arms around her again.

“I’m not going to change my mind,” he said after a while.

She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to believe him. She wanted so much to believe him, but some stubborn little piece of her heart was still saying she couldn’t afford to.

“Jyn?” he said. “I’m _not_ going to change my mind.”

“I heard you,” she said softly.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. “You think I’m lying?”

“No. No, I don’t think you’re lying. Please, let’s not talk about it right now.”

“We have to talk eventually!” he said. “You keep saying later, later, we’ll talk about it later, but you never _actually_ want to talk about it.”

She got up again, starting getting dressed. “No! I don’t! Because we’re both… we’re shit at talking, and I don’t want us to fight, and see, we’re fighting!”

“This isn’t a fight,” said Cassian.

“Yes it is!” There were tears burning hot in her eyes. “It _is_ a fight. We’re fighting, and I don’t want to fight!”

“All you have to do,” said Cassian, “is stop yelling at me, and then we won’t be fighting.”

She burst into tears and sat down on the other bunk.

“Hey,” said Cassian gently. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay.” He got up and sat next to her, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her head. “Just tell me what to do to fix it, and I’ll do it,” he said.

“I don’t _know,”_ she sobbed. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t know what we’re _doing.”_

“Me neither.”

“I don’t want to go back to base either,” she said. “You’re going to get so freaked out that people might figure out you’re actually human and you’re going to run away from me again and if you do it again I just…”

He didn’t speak for a long few moments. “I _am_ freaked out,” he said at last. “I can’t just turn that off. If I could, I would. But you’re… I really… I want to do this. I’m not going to run away from you, I’m not going to change my mind. I promise. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead, wiping the tears away. She took a heavy exhale that turned into a nervous laugh. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said. “That kind of came out of nowhere, didn’t it?”

“No,” he said. “It didn’t come out of nowhere. Actually, it’s…” He paused for a moment, looking uncomfortable. “It helps to know that you’re… freaked out, too.” He looked down like he was shy, that unexpected, sweet duck of the head that she saw occasionally, so out of place on him. 

“I don’t really want to listen to them making their stupid little comments either,” she said, leaning into him. “They really can be obnoxious.”

“Why do you hang out with people you think are obnoxious?” he asked.

She shrugged. “They can be fun, too. And it’s better than not hanging out with anyone. Everyone needs friends.”

“I haven’t had any friends in… three, four years,” he said. “Unless you count K2.”

“And you don’t get lonely?”

He paused. “I don’t know. I guess so. Maybe I’m just used to it.”

“That’s sort of bleak, isn’t it?”

“Is it? All my friends kept dying. It seems… easier. To not have any.”

“Yeah,” said Jyn. “That’s bleak. But I understand the logic. What about back home? When you were a kid? Did you have friends there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I think they’re all dead. I had a sister, too.”

“You did?”

He nodded. 

“Was she older or younger?”

“Younger. A lot younger. She was just a baby when… things started happening.”

She threaded her fingers through his and raised his hand to her lips.

He was looking off into space. “I don’t think there’s anyone else alive who even knows she existed,” he said softly. “It actually wasn’t the war that got her. It was the pollution. Her lungs were bad. It was a bad way to die.” He shook himself like he was waking up. “I don’t know why I’m— I don’t even remember her very well. I was little.”

She squeezed his hand. “What was her name?” she asked.

After a long pause, he said, “Lavinia. I don’t know why I brought it up. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “That’s what… people do. When they’re… they tell each other things they don’t tell anyone else.”

“I don’t tell anyone anything,” he said with a little half-smile.

“So you have a lot to choose from,” she said.

“Then I guess it’s your turn,” he said. “To tell me something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Something. Tell me about your necklace.”

“My necklace? What about it?” She touched the crystal with her fingers.

Cassian shrugged. “You don’t have to. I just wondered if it… if it meant something special.”

“It does. It was my mother’s. She gave it to me right before she died. She was… religious. She believed in, you know, the Force.”

“The Force,” said Cassian. “Do you believe in it, too?”

“I don’t know,” said Jyn. “Sometimes. Do you?”

He shook his head. “The old Jedis were doing _something._ Other than that, I don’t know.”

She pulled him down to lie with her on the bunk and curled herself up around him, took one of his hands in hers. 

“I saw one once,” he said.

“Saw one what?”

“A Jedi.”

“Really?”

“When I was a kid. They were in charge of the clone army, before Palpatine had them all killed. Us kids were throwing rocks and then there was this Togruta girl who looked at us and all the rocks just… froze where they were and fell to the ground. And we all ran away because we thought she was going to kill us, but she didn’t chase after us or anything. I haven’t thought about that day in a long time. I don’t know what it is about you, Jyn. Like I’ve been sleeping for a long time, and you’re waking me up.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just kissed the back of his neck and squeezed him a little tighter.


	19. the voice

This was a gift; this trip together, this time alone. He wished that he knew how to just enjoy something; that he could just let this be the beautiful miracle it was. And sometimes he could. There were moments when he forgot to be anxious, or he was so wrapped up in her that there was no room for anything else in his mind, and he clung to those moments. But it always came back: the voice in his head telling him, over and over, that this could never last, that he was going to ruin it. She might think she likes you now, the voice told him, but that just means you’ve tricked her. She’ll figure it out eventually. How long do you really think you can fool her?

Talking still felt dangerous. He spent long hours running his fingers and his mouth across her skin. He wanted to be touching her all the time. It felt like a need, he wanted it so much. Not even sex, necessarily; just to touch her, just to feel the warmth of her skin, to know she was real and living and that she loved him, even if that part was just temporary.

Because of course it was just temporary. No one could really love someone like him.

He was still dreading their return to base. It was horrifying that so many people had known how he felt about her before he did. He kept remembering the blend of amusement and pity in Samaira’s voice when she’d said “oh honey. You don’t even know, do you?” That was what was so intolerable. That he was so obvious, so transparent, that people who barely knew him could have known something about him that he hadn’t known about himself.

He had relied all his life on strategic invisibility. He preferred not to be noticed, except when he chose to be, and then he carefully chose what to reveal. No more, no less. So to realize that despite his best efforts, he’d been broadcasting incredibly private information to everyone on base was disturbing. This was something he didn’t think he could explain to Jyn. His last attempt had been a disaster. She would think he was ashamed or embarrassed of how he felt; he wasn’t. He was embarrassed that he’d been caught out by strangers, when controlling information was what he  _ did.  _

Everything is fine, he tried to tell himself, watching her sleep. Everything is fine, and she loves you, so just fucking relax.

If only it were that easy.

But when they did make it back, their relationship was the last thing anyone was interested in. While they’d been all wrapped up in each other, while he’d been learning every little curve of her body, one of their bases had been attacked. The losses were catastrophic. Dodonna was dead. Draven was dead. Dozens of others, hundreds of others. Guilt sat deep in his gut, making him feel sick. 

It wouldn’t have changed anything if he’d been there to get killed, too. It wouldn’t have. And it wouldn’t have changed anything if instead of being as close to happy as he’d been in his life, he’d been his usual self. It wouldn’t have. He knew that. But it was so hard not to make the connection. Look what you did, that voice whispered. Look what you did.


	20. do I distract you?

Between the regular crew who were always here and the people who’d managed to escape Mako-Ta, things were crowded. In the chaos, their old quarters had been given away and no one had yet found a place for either of them to sleep, so they were sleeping on the ship, in the hangar. What time they could steal away from duty, they spent there, wrapped up in each other, trying to pretend that nothing else existed. But that was coming to an end, as she’d known it would have to.

“I have to go soon,” said Cassian, reluctantly, hugging her a little closer.

“How soon?”

“Pretty soon.” Cassian had been moody and guilt stricken since they came back. He seemed to blame himself for what had happened at Mako-Ta, as if it had anything to do with him, with them. She had tried, a few times over the last two weeks, to prod him into talking about it, but he was evasive, and she didn’t feel up to having an argument about it, so she let it lie.

“How long do you think you’ll be gone?” she asked.

He sighed. “At least a month. Maybe more. It just depends.”

“And you can’t tell me where you’re going?”

“You know I can’t.”

“But you’re coming back?”

“I hope so.”

“You hope so,” she repeated.

“Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen, do I?” He sounded a little exasperated. “If I’m still alive and I’m capable of coming back, then I’m coming back. Do you want me to lie to you and promise that nothing’s going to happen?”

“I wish I could just come with you,” said Jyn.

“You can’t,” said Cassian. “Not this time. It’s too… I can’t afford to be distracted.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Do I distract you, Major?”

“You’re the most distracting thing I’ve ever…” He reached his fingers out and ran them over her lips. “When I’m with you,” he said with his eyes closed and his voice hoarse. “You’re the only thing I can see.”

Fucking hell, for someone who professed to have no idea how to be in a relationship, he could say the sweetest, most romantic things. She leaned in and kissed him gently. “How’m I supposed to let you go,” she said, “when you say things like that?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sure I can be an asshole, if that would make it easier.”

She laughed. “It might,” she said, and she kissed him again, rolling onto her back and pulling him on top of her. 

“Jyn,” he said. “I really can’t. There’s no time.” But he said it with his lips against her neck. 

“One more for the road?” she whispered.

“I don’t have enough time,” he protested.

“I’m sure you could make it fast if you really worked at it,” she said. “You don’t _need_ to spend hours torturing me first.”

“Is that what I do?” he asked.

“What if I say please?” She nibbled along his jaw. “What if I really, really need it?”

He closed his eyes and let his breath out in a low, soft hum. 

“You can’t go anywhere,” said Jyn, “if I refuse to leave the ship, can you? So why don’t you quit wasting time and give me what I want?”

“You’re trying to get me in trouble,” said Cassian, shaking his head, but he was already lifting up her hips and spreading her legs and she rolled her head back and moaned as she felt him filling her up. “Is that what you wanted?” he asked, in that soft, low, painfully sexy voice of his.

“Mmm-hmmm.” She wrapped her legs around his waist. “Yes, please. A little harder.”

“Harder?” he echoed.

 _“Harder.”_ She wanted to still be feeling it tomorrow, when he was gone.

He hesitated just a moment. “You’ll tell me if—”

“I’ll tell you,” she said. He’d made her promise this many times by now, that she would let him know if he hurt her or scared her. She took his face in her hands, met his eyes. “Trust me,” she said, and he nodded, kissed her, and did as she’d asked.

“Okay,” said Cassian, when he was done with her. “Now I really, really have to go.”

“Well now I don’t think I can stand up straight long enough to walk out of here,” she said.

“Come on Jyn,” he said. “Quit playing. I have to go. Get dressed.”

She tried to quash the little flare of annoyance. He really did have to go. This didn’t have anything to do with her or with them. She knew that. 

“Just promise me you’ll be careful,” she said, as she started dressing.

“I promise I will try my very best not to die,” he said. 

“Try harder than that,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a kiss. 

“I mean it, Cassian.”

“I mean it, too.”

“Will you miss me?” she asked, tugging her shirt over her head.

“Probably,” he said. “I’m going to have to sleep in this bunk all alone.”

“Poor thing,” she said.

“I’ll see you soon,” said Cassian, and then there was a brief pause and he pushed out the words “I love you.”

It was still so hard for him to say it. She tried not to take it personally. That wasn’t about her, either. It was about him, and how scared he was. In a way, it was beautiful that he said it even though it _was_ so hard for him. She kissed him one last time. “I love _you,”_ she said. “Be careful.”

“You too.” 

So Cassian left, and they finally found an empty bunk for Jyn, and she kept making docs and doing whatever other things she was asked to do, and she tried not to worry.

She thought about him all the time, which wasn’t really a change from before, but it _felt_ different. She missed him, and missing him had a purity that it hadn’t had before. Before, there had been anger mixed into it, and other complications. Now, missing him felt like a clear, beautiful shard of ice in her heart.

Of course, the longer he was gone, the more nervous she got. He had told her that he loved her; he had promised that this was for real; she had made him promise again and again that he wasn’t going to change his mind this time. But what if he did? How could she be sure? 


	21. practice

Two months wasn’t really a long time to be away on a mission. Until now, he never would have considered it a long time. He’d always preferred being out in the field. He’d never had any reason to want to go back.

Now he did.

As he had thought it would be, it was hard to fall asleep in his bunk on the ship. In either of them. She’d left her scent behind, and although that had eventually faded, it was impossible to lie in either of those bunks without remembering all the time they had spent there together, and the things they had done. The taste of her skin and the sound of his name on her lips.

He eventually gave up on trying to sleep in either bunk, and instead he slept in the pilot’s seat. He was glad that they’d never had sex in the cockpit, so it wasn’t full of those memories, but, of course, once the idea had come into his head, he couldn’t stop imagining it.

So that wasn’t ideal.

So this was what love was like. It was weird. It was a little uncomfortable. But it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared it would be. What was it that he’d been so afraid of? 

Now he was on his way back. Everything had gone pretty well, other than a minor incident where someone had tried to rob him at knifepoint and he’d gotten a little bit stabbed. He’d had to kill his assailant, which he felt badly about, because it was just some kid who’d picked the wrong target, but the wound was minor; no bacta needed. He’d cleaned it and sewn himself up and it was a little ugly — he’d never quite gotten the hang of making neat stitches when he was doing it on himself — but there wouldn’t be any lasting harm in it. Just another ugly scar, and he had plenty of those already.

He’d never looked forward to getting back to base before. He’d never really had any feelings about it at all. But now he was impatient. He wanted to see Jyn. Assuming she was there. Assuming she still wanted to see him.

On the flight back, he practiced saying “I love you” out loud, hoping it would be easier when he saw her again, that he wouldn’t have to fight so hard to get the words out. He usually only practiced telling lies, so they would sound natural when he needed to use them. But the same principle probably worked for things that were true, too. I love you. I love you. I love you. It felt silly to sit there in his ship saying that out loud to no one, but he did it anyway.

Back at base, he made his report to his new general, who seemed slightly less overwhelmed than he had in the immediate aftermath of Mako-Ta, and then he went looking for Jyn.

He found the room she’d been assigned to, but the door was answered by a tall young woman with dark blonde hair.

“Oh,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

“Are you looking for Jyn?” the girl asked.

He nodded.

“I think she’s on duty. Isn’t it first watch? You’re Major Andor, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “Cassian.” They’d promoted him right before he left. They’d been promoting everyone who was still alive because so much of the leadership had been killed at Mako-Ta. He’d been away from anyone who would address him by rank for long enough that the promotion had slipped his mind until he’d gotten back and started hearing it. He was used to people calling him Captain. Major just sounded stupid. 

“If I see her, I’ll tell her you were looking for her,” said Jyn’s bunkmate.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” said the young woman. 

He frowned. “Should I?” He didn’t usually forget anyone.

“Maybe not. We met on Coruscant once, but just for a minute. I’m Leia’s friend. The one with the hair. I look a lot different now.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. “I remember you now.” He’d waylaid the princess one morning to give her something for her father, and this girl had been with her, but she’d been dressed outlandishly and had bright pink hair.

“Regulations,” said the girl. “I don’t know why it matters what color my hair is. Well, I guess I’ll see you around. I’ll tell Jyn you came by.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant…?”

“Holdo,” she said. “But you can call me Amilyn. I’m on third watch, by the way, so if you come back then, you’ll have the room to yourselves.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile and shut the door in his face.

Strange girl.

He wasn’t sure what to do with himself, but the first watch would be over pretty soon, so he went to find something to eat and then went back to wait for Jyn. He sat down on the floor outside her door to wait, and almost fell asleep where he sat.

“Cassian?” he heard, and he blinked his eyes open. It was Jyn.

“Hi,” he said.

“You’re back,” said Jyn. She sounded a little nervous.

“I’m back,” he agreed, slowly getting to his feet. He was nervous, too. “Hi.” He should do something. What should he do? 

“Hi.” The look on her face was apprehensive. He felt a sick twist in his chest. Had she changed her mind? Was she going to tell him that she’d realized she didn’t love him after all?

Or maybe she was afraid that _he’d_ changed _his_ mind. Like she’d said a hundred times she was afraid of. Okay. Be brave. He got closer to her, reached for her hand. Say something. “Hi,” he said again. Damn it. Say something _else._ “I missed you,” he managed to get out, and she smiled, like she was relieved.

“I missed you, too,” she said, and she pulled on his hand a little so he stepped closer. “Were you out here waiting for me?”

“No,” he said, smiling a little so she would know he was joking, letting his fingers thread through hers playfully. “I guess your room is occupied,” he said. “Do you want to… go to the ship?”

She nodded, smiling.

So they made their way back to the ship, and maybe a few people glanced at them and smirked, but it bothered him less than he’d thought it would.

Back in the safety of their ship, away from all those eyes, he felt himself relax a little. He took her face in his hands. “I missed you,” he said again.

“You said that already,” she told him.

“Oh. Am I only allowed to say it once?” He rested his forehead against hers and touched the bit of hair that was always falling in her face, a little too short to stay up in the knot at the back of her head. He had his eyes closed. Her hands were on the back of his neck, and he let his fall to her hips. He didn’t want to move, or breathe, because this was too perfect, and he could only ruin it.

“Are you all right?” she asked in a small voice. “You’re shaking.”

“Am I?” He opened his eyes again, pulled away just enough that he could look down at her face. “I think I was a little bit worried. That you wouldn’t like me anymore.”

She laughed a nervous little laugh. “I was worried that you wouldn’t like _me_ anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he said.

“How long are you going to be here?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t heard anything yet, but I just got back. Probably not long.”

“We better not waste any time, then,” said Jyn with a little smile, pulling him down gently to kiss her.

“I love you,” he said, and all that practice must have helped, because it came out easier than it ever had before, even if it still made him feel like he’d been pushed over with the gravity turned off.

When she had stripped his shirt off of him, she stopped and frowned. “What the hell happened to you?” she asked, looking at the unevenly stitched-up wound in his shoulder.

“What? Nothing.”

“You look like you got stabbed,” she said.

“Oh, that. Right. I did. Some kid tried to rob me. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s not a big deal,” she repeated.

“It’s not. It was my own fault; I was trying to avoid killing him. He was just a kid.” He still felt a little badly that he’d had to kill the kid. He’d done his share of robbery as a kid. You have to do what you have to do to survive.

“I wish you would at least warn me,” said Jyn. “It looks awful. Does it hurt?”

“Not much.”

She kissed the skin near the injury. “Didn’t you promise me that you were going to be careful?”

“I _was_ careful. Sometimes things happen. It was just a kid with a knife. You know what I bet would make it feel a lot better?” he asked, unbuttoning her pants and reaching down inside them.

“What?” she asked, a little breathless, eyes closed.

“If you let me make you come,” said Cassian against her ear.

“I’ve never heard of that treatment for stab wounds,” said Jyn, a little smile on her lips, and she moaned very softly. “That feels good. Keep— keep doing that.” 

“You are so beautiful,” he said. “I missed you so much. I thought about you all the time while I was gone.”

“Cassian,” she sighed, and she took his face in her hands and kissed him, and he was probably happier than he’d ever been.


	22. dreams

It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t always hard, either. When they were apart, his life went on more or less like it had before, except now he had something to come home to, something worth staying alive for. He had meant it when he told Jyn that getting himself killed had always been the plan. For almost as long as he could remember, he’d assumed he would die in the line of duty, and he’d made his peace with that fact long ago. Or he thought he had. It was different now. There was a hope, growing somewhere deep in his chest, that someday, maybe, the war really would end, and he and Jyn would emerge on the other side of it, together. Maybe. It wasn’t impossible. It changed things for him; it changed the calculations he made. Not enough to satisfy her; she regularly scolded him for not being careful enough, but the truth was, he was more cautious, more conscious of the need to preserve his own life than he had been since childhood. Because he needed to make it back to her.

As loving Jyn got easier, work got harder, especially the dirtier parts. The murders, the lies, the manipulations. The cruelties, large and small, that he had to commit in the service of the cause. He’d never slept well about it. He’d never enjoyed it. It had always been hard, but it was worse now. He felt more haunted by his crimes than ever. His dreams became more vivid, more bloody, and he woke up shaking more often than not.

In an unexpected move, the princess had asked Jyn if she wanted to switch rooms, meaning Jyn had no roommate, so when he was on base, they had a little more privacy than they could get squatting in his ship. Private rooms were hard to come by, and neither of them could make any sense out of it, but the princess just shrugged. “I’d rather share with Amilyn,” she said, and that was all she said about it.

So when they were together, they slept next to each other, as best they could; they were both light sleepers, so they woke up often, but it seemed worth it to wake up next to her, the warmth of her body against his and the scent of her skin in his nose. There were moments with her that he felt a simple, uncomplicated wholeness and happiness that was unlike anything he’d ever felt, or expected to feel, before. It never lasted long, but every second of it felt like a delicate and precious gift he’d been given. That she’d given to him.

There was a dream he’d been dreaming for most of his life, and one night Jyn woke him from it.

“Shh,” she said. “It’s all right. It’s all right.” She was behind him, on her side, curled up around him, holding him with her whole body. “It’s all right.”

It wasn’t all right, but he let himself be soothed anyway. “I was dreaming,” he said. There were tears caught in his eyelashes. He turned his face into the pillow, not wanting her to see.

“I know,” said Jyn. “It was just a dream.”

“No,” he said. “Not just a dream.”

“A memory?” she asked.

“Sort of.”

She took his hand in hers. “It’s okay,” she said gently, and he nodded, face still hidden.

No one had seen Cassian cry since he was a small child. There was no tolerance for weakness in his childhood. No coddling, no kindness. There was only the work, the violence, the devotion to the cause of freedom that necessitated killing off everything soft and weak and innocent that had ever been there. So he’d learned not to cry, just as he’d learned not to love, and not to value his own life, and now all of those lessons were unravelling, now that wall of ice that had protected him for so long was melting in the gentle warmth of Jyn’s love. A sob tore out of his throat.

“Shh,” she said, and she kissed the back of his neck. “You’re safe now. Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

She squeezed him a little tighter. “You don’t have to,” she said. “Sometimes it feels a little better to tell someone. Less lonely.”

“I dream it all the time,” he said slowly. “Ever since it happened.”

She didn’t push or press. He was lying on his stomach now and she gently rubbed his back, which was soothing in a way he didn’t understand.

“I’m back home,” he said. “In my room, in my bed, where I lived when I was little. And there’s this sound, like thunder. It’s the day they started bombing us. But this time I know what it is. I didn’t know, when it really happened I didn’t know what it was. And I always think… this time I can stop it. This time I can… I can save her. But I never can. I go out the door of my room but the house is wrong. It’s just… dark, and there’s too many doors, and I can’t find her. There’s stairs. It didn’t really have stairs. But in the dream there’s usually stairs and there’s so many doors and no windows and I can’t _find_ her.”

“Your mother?” she asked, and he nodded.

“It was my fault,” he said. “She was trying to get us out of the house, but I didn’t want to go. I should have listened to her. I should have done what she told me, and instead I argued and whined and we didn’t get out of the house in time and she died and it was my fault.”

“No it wasn’t,” said Jyn. “You were a child.”

“I should have listened to her,” he said again.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Jyn. “It really wasn’t. You were just a child, and you didn’t know.”

“Okay,” he said. He wasn’t sure he believed her, but he wanted to, so badly. He hated thinking about his mother, who he barely remembered except for the way she’d made him feel safe and cared for, and that sometimes she had sung him little songs, and the awful, hideous memory of the day she died. But he felt sure that she would be ashamed of her son, the killer. Disgusted by what he’d grown up to be.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” asked Jyn.

“For being… like this.”

She kissed his shoulder. “I love you,” she said.

“Do you, really?” It was still hard to believe, sometimes.

“Yes, I really, really do.”

“I’m a bad person,” he whispered.

“Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t think you’re as bad as you think you are. A really bad person wouldn’t care. They’d… sleep easy. No matter what they’d done.”

“You deserve someone better.”

“I don’t want anyone but you.” She kissed his shoulder again. “Just you. We’re in this together, Cassian.”

“I know,” he said. He rolled over so he could gather her up in his arms. The curve of her small body that nestled so easily into his. The rightness of it, the safety. “Thank you,” he said into her hair.

“You’re welcome,” said Jyn, taking one of his hands in hers. “I don’t know what you’re thanking me for, but you’re welcome.” She yawned.

“Go back to sleep,” said Cassian.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Go back to sleep, Jyn. You’ve got work in the morning.”

“Love you,” said Jyn, already drifting off. 

He kissed her hair. “Love _you,”_ he echoed.

He stayed awake for a long time after that, just feeling the comfort of her sleeping body in his arms and listening to her slow and steady breathing. Eventually he fell asleep too, and he didn’t have any more dreams that night.


	23. the transformation

Cassian was being sent out on longer missions: months at a time, sometimes. He said that this was how it had been before he met her; that Draven had never really gotten over his grudge about Scarif, but the new head of Intel didn’t have that problem, and things were back to his pre-Scarif normal. So he wasn’t around that often. Jyn was still doing docs, and sometimes going out to help with recruitment. That had actually been Cassian’s idea; he said she was incredibly persuasive whether she wanted to be or not.

“What does that mean?” she’d asked him.

“No one else could have convinced me to go to Scarif,” he told her. 

“I didn’t even ask you to go to Scarif.”

“I know. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got… you’ve got something in your eyes.”

“You do, too.”

“Not like you,” he said. “You’re special.”

“Shut up.” She was blushing.

“You are!” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “There’s nobody else like you.”

There had been a transformation in Cassian. It hadn’t happened quickly, or easily, but it happened. Maybe there had been a transformation in her, too. At first, every time they were reunited, they were shy of each other, scared. It was so hard to trust that this was real. But it was. They had proved it to each other. He didn’t even struggle to say “I love you” anymore.

Not that everything was perfect. They still argued a lot; they were both easily wounded, and tended to lash out. Sometimes their love felt like a delicate, fragile little thing, but it was growing stronger. They learned the words “I’m sorry,” and they used them a lot. 

A little more than two years after Yavin — which was how everyone was referring to the passage of time these days: there was Before Yavin and there was After Yavin — Jyn came back from a recruitment mission, only to hear that Cassian was also just back from his most recent mission, and was in the infirmary, because he’d managed to almost get himself killed yet again.

He was awake and looking at a data tablet when she got there. “Hey,” he said, setting the tablet aside. “I thought you were offworld.”

“I just got back,” she said. “And here we are, back in the infirmary.” She sat on the edge of his bed.

“It’s our special place,” said Cassian, smiling at her just a little. She laughed and kissed his hand.

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay. Still alive.”

“What happened?”

“I sort of fell off a roof. It really wasn’t—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “It’s not a big deal. You say that every time. I think the only time you ever agreed that it was a big deal was Scarif.”

“That one was a big deal,” he said.

“You fell off a roof.”

“Well, I got shot first, and then I fell. But I’m fine. Couple of broken ribs and my knee got fucked up again. They made me do six hours in the bacta tank, so I’m pretty much good as new. I couldn’t fall asleep,” he added. “I hate being awake in that thing.”

“I know you do,” she said, stroking his hair. “You should try to fall off of things less often and you won’t have to worry about it.”

“But you know how I love falling off of things,” he said, with that sweet little playful smile that no one but her ever got to see. “I like the attention.”

She laughed and leaned in to kiss him.

“See?” he said, running a finger along the side of her face. “Attention.” He gave her another kiss. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you,” she said. “Which is why you need to be more careful.”

“I’m being as careful as I can,” he protested.

“I know.” She kissed his hand again.

“I was thinking about it, actually,” he said. “We’ve been lucky so far. But one of these days, one of us is going to go out and not come back.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” she told him.

“It’s not pessimistic. It’s realistic. So I think we should get married.”

She was so shocked she just stared at him for a minute. “You think we should do what?”

“Get married,” he said again. “What do you think?”

“I think they must have you on some really powerful painkillers again,” she said, laughing nervously. “You’re not serious.”

“I  _ am _ serious.” He was looking at her with a steady gaze. “You don’t want to?”

“I… I never thought about it,” she admitted.

“Well, you can think about it now,” he said. “You don’t have to answer right away. But you’re smiling.”

“Am I?” she asked.

“You are.” He reached up and touched her cheek. There was a soft smile on his own face.

She  _ was _ smiling. And then she laughed. “Okay,” she said. 

“Okay?”

“Okay. Yes. Let’s get married. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” He settled himself back into the bed, looking satisfied 

“It doesn’t really solve the problem, you know,” she said. “It’s not going to make either of us immortal.”

“No,” he said. “I know. But at least this way, if something does happen… I want to know that you knew how much I love you. So you’re in?”

She leaned forward and kissed him. “I’m in.”

“When?” he asked. “I’m ready whenever you are; you can go find an officer and we can do it right now.” She laughed again. There was something absurd about this; it couldn’t  _ really _ be happening. “But we can do something more… traditional? If that’s what you want,” he finished.

“You’re being so weird,” said Jyn. “Are you sure it’s not the painkillers talking?”

“I’m not on anything, Jyn. Nothing strong enough to affect my judgment. I swear.”

“Okay,” she said, still laughing. “I believe you.”

“Do you want a ring? There’s supposed to be a ring, right?”

“I don’t need a ring,” she said.

“I know you don’t  _ need _ one,” he said. “I asked if you  _ want _ one.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I never thought about that, either.” Unconsciously, she reached for the crystal around her neck. Maybe a ring  _ would _ be nice. Maybe it would feel like Cassian was with her even when they were on opposite ends of the galaxy, the way the necklace sometimes made her feel her mother’s presence even though she was gone. “Sure,” she said. “I think I would. Nothing too nice, though. Nothing anyone would want to steal.”

“Okay,” said Cassian. “A cheap, ugly ring. I can probably find one of those.”

She laughed and kissed him and laughed a little more. “You’re really serious about this?” she said.

“I’m really serious about this,” he said. “How many times are you going to make me say it?”

“At least one more,” she said, leaning in to kiss him again.

He put a hand on the side of her face. “I love you,” he said. “I’ll say it as many times as it takes for you to believe me.”

“I  _ do _ believe you,” said Jyn. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“Not very long,” he admitted. “I was thinking about it while I was in the tank — you know I hate being awake in there, so I’m usually thinking about you as a distraction — and then I was thinking about it again a few minutes ago and you walked in, so.” He gave a sheepish shrug. “It’s kind of the easiest decision I’ve ever made.”

“I wonder where I can find something nice to wear.”

“Like what?”

“Like a dress,” she said. “To get married in. People usually get a little dressed up for that kind of thing.”

“I’ve never seen you wear a dress,” he said thoughtfully.

“I don’t even remember the last time I wore one,” she said. “But if I’m going to get  _ married,  _ I should have a dress.”

“You should ask the princess,” said Cassian. “She’s probably got something stashed away you can borrow.”

“I’ll just walk up to the princess and ask to borrow a wedding dress, shall I?”

“She’d do it,” he said. “Or at least she can probably tell you where you can get one. She must get her clothes somewhere.”

She was laughing again, unable to stop herself. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. This is crazy.”

“Why would you ask me to borrow a wedding dress?” Jyn looked up and the princess herself was there in the doorway.

“Your Highness. What are you doing here?” said Cassian.

“I heard you almost got yourself killed again, so I thought I’d stop by and see if you needed anything. Are you getting  _ married?” _

They exchanged a quick glance and Jyn smiled and shrugged a little. “Yes,” she said.

“That’s amazing,” said the princess. “Yes, I would  _ love _ to lend you a dress.”

“Oh, you don’t have to—”

“No, please, I want to. Are you sure you want to get married in a borrowed dress, though? I’m sure I can find something for you that you can keep.”

“What would I do with it?” said Jyn. “No, no, borrowing one is fine, if  _ you _ don’t mind.”

“This is so wonderful,” said the princess. “I can’t believe something  _ good _ is going to happen, for once. I bet you weren’t even going to tell me, were you, Commander?” She fixed Cassian with an accusatory stare. “You’d just sneak off and do it secretly. What a good thing I happened to come by. When’s the wedding?”

They looked at each other and Jyn started laughing again. “Soon,” said Jyn. “When Cassian’s out of the infirmary.”

“I’ll be out of here tomorrow,” said Cassian. “This is nothing. But I have to go get you… that thing. That we talked about.”

“Let’s say a week, then,” said Jyn.


	24. family

“Any of these would look really nice on you,” said the princess, sorting through several long white dresses that to Jyn’s eyes appeared almost identical. “I hope you don’t mind white; it’s all I have. Hold this one up. That’s beautiful. That’s what I wore at that stupid medal ceremony on Yavin. Were you there for that?”

“No,” said Jyn. “I was with Cassian.”

“You should have gotten a medal if anyone was. Hell, _I_ should have gotten one. You and I did just as much as Luke and Han did. And Cassian, of course, although he’d never have agreed to do it even if he’d been able to stand up. Can you imagine? He hates anyone looking at him or paying attention to him. He must really love you a lot if he’s willing to have an actual wedding. Try that dress on.”

Jyn was pretty sure she was blushing, but she did as the princess commanded.

“Anyway,” said the princess as Jyn was changing, “I was against the medal thing to begin with. Unseemly to be celebrating like that when we’d just lost so many people. But nobody ever listens to me. Oh, you look beautiful! You should wear that.”

“This is too nice for me,” said Jyn. “I’ll get it dirty.” The dress was fairly simply in style, for a princess’s wardrobe, but it felt expensive.

“Oh, who cares?” said the princess. “It’ll get clean again. I have a dress I wore in a _trash compactor_ that looks fine now. Now what about your hair?”

“What about it?”

“Sit down. Do you want to wear it down, or up? I know a _lot_ of good braids.”

“I don’t know,” said Jyn. “If I’m being honest, Your Highness, this is all kind of a bit much for me.”

“You can call me Leia,” said the princess. “I think maybe you should try it down. It’s a little scandalous by Alderaanian standards, but I bet it looks pretty.” She took Jyn’s hair out of its knot and brushed it out.

“Why is it scandalous?” asked Jyn.

“Oh, a proper Alderaanian lady _never_ takes her hair down,” said the princess. “It’s like, oh I don’t know. Not quite like being _naked,_ but similar. Hair was a big thing there; there’s a whole language to it. You know, there are some hairstyles you wear for celebrations and there are some you wear when you’re mourning. That’s what this is,” she added, touching the braids coiled around her head. “Grief hair. It’s also just the most practical, but I think that’s probably why it’s for grief.”

“How do you wear it at weddings?” asked Jyn.

“The bride?” said Leia. “It’s actually one of the simplest styles we do: you basically just pile everything on top and put a few pins in it. Like so. Yours is a little short to get the full effect. The old tradition was, after the wedding, the bride would get undressed, you know, and then her husband would take her hair down, and that’s supposed to be the first time he ever sees it. Probably it usually _isn’t,_ just like it’s probably not the first time he’s seen her undressed, but that’s the tradition. So the idea was it needs to be easy to take down, no elaborate braids and as few pins as possible.” She removed the pins and let Jyn’s hair fall loose again. “Like that.”

“Does anyone’s hair ever just fall out in the middle of the wedding?” asked Jyn.

“I’ve heard of it happening, but I’ve never seen it. There’s special hair stylists who do nothing but bride hair, and the best ones, supposedly, can do the whole thing with a single pin, and it’ll stay up for the whole wedding. There were, I mean.” She paused for a minute, running her fingers through Jyn’s hair. “Well, there’s probably still someone somewhere.”

“It sounds like a nice tradition,” said Jyn. “Kind of romantic.”

“Yeah,” said the princess. “Doesn’t it?” There was a wistful little note in her voice. It must be awful to be her, thought Jyn, thinking of how her own grief for her lost family and innocence sometimes felt like it would break her to pieces, and trying to imagine it multiplied by an entire world.

“You can do it if you want,” said the princess. “I’ll put it back up for you and you can let him take it down.”

“I think I would like that,” said Jyn, touched by what felt like a deeply intimate gesture. “If it’s all right.” For a brief moment neither of them said anything, as the princess combed through her hair with her fingers. “Can I ask you something?” said Jyn. “Why are you doing all this? We barely know each other.”

“I’m really tired of being sad all the time,” said the princess after a moment, pinning Jyn’s hair up and carefully coaxing a few strands to hang loose around her face. “I want to be happy about something, even if it’s just for five minutes. And what’s happier than a wedding? Now stand up and let’s have a look.”

The girl in the mirror was beautiful. Jyn didn’t quite recognize herself, and she reached up to touch her own face just to be sure it was really her reflection she was looking at. “Is that _me?”_ she said.

“Is it too much?” asked the princess.

She shook her head. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s just a dress,” said the princess.

There was a knock at the door, and then a young man’s voice: “Leia! Hey Leia! I’m back!”

The princess rolled her eyes a little bit. “Come in, Luke.”

Luke Skywalker appeared in the doorway, holding a box. “I hope I got the right ones,” he said. “I’ve never picked flowers before.”

Jyn looked down, feeling faintly embarrassed. 

“Ah, perfect,” said the princess, and she started picking through the box of flowers with a look of intense concentration on her face, sorting them into piles, and a few minutes later was performing some impossibly complicated act that transformed a pile of little white and yellow flowers into a wreath, which she placed on Jyn’s head. “Perfect,” she said again.

“Where did you learn to do that?” asked Jyn.

“Oh, I have all kinds of skills that are basically useless these days,” said the princess. “All the girls used to make flower crowns and things like that when I was a kid. I’m not even that good at it; you should have seen the stuff the girls I went to school with could do. All right! Are you ready to get married?”

Jyn took a deep breath. “I think so,” she said. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” She was still having a hard time believing this was real.

“You’ll be fine,” said the princess. “Luke, tell her how pretty she looks!”

“You really do,” said Skywalker, a little shyly. 

“I’m very good,” said the princess with satisfaction, and she took Jyn by the arm and led her out of the room.

She did her best not to feel self-conscious as the princess led her through the hallways on their way to meet Cassian. She’d never been this dressed up before. She kept her eyes on the floor, afraid that people were staring. But the way the dress swished around her legs as she walked, and the way the cape part trailed behind her was sort of fun, and after all, she _had_ said she wanted to get dressed up for this. You’re supposed to get dressed up for your wedding.

They were getting married in a little room that was used for services at various times by members of the many different religions who called the Baraan-Fa base home. The princess, in her infinite resourcefulness, had even found a chaplain from Jyn’s mother’s religion to say the blessings.

Cassian was waiting for them there, and Jyn felt suddenly too nervous to step through the door. This was crazy. They weren’t the kind of people who got _married._ She took a deep breath and touched the crystal that hung around her neck to ground herself.

Shara came barreling down the hallway still in her flight suit. “Jyn!” she yelled, flinging her arms around her. “Please tell me I didn’t miss it! I can’t believe you thought you were going to get married without inviting me!”

“Hi,” said Jyn, surprised. “I didn’t even know you were—”

“I just landed, like ten minutes ago,” said Shara. “Last mission for a while. Apparently six months pregnant is too pregnant to fly an A-wing. I could barely close my flight harness over this thing.” She patted her belly, noticeably larger than the last time Jyn had seen her, only a few weeks ago. “Fortunately, I heard some people talking in the hangar, so I ran right over. I didn’t miss it, did I?”

“No,” said Jyn, feeling an unexpected rush of affection for her friend. “You didn’t miss it.” She leaned in and impulsively hugged Shara again. “Thank you.” They hadn’t really invited anyone to join them; it seemed too personal, and Cassian was so uncomfortable being the center of attention, as the princess had so astutely pointed out. But Jyn was suddenly very glad that Shara was here.

“You clean up nice!” said Shara. “So let’s go! I’m so excited!”

Jyn nodded. “Right. Right.”

“You okay?” asked Shara.

“I think I’m… freaking out, a little bit,” said Jyn.

“That’s normal. I almost ran away from my wedding, I was so scared. You’ll be fine.” She took Jyn’s arm and as they were about to go in, Cassian suddenly appeared in the doorway.

Both the princess and Shara started giggling when they saw Cassian’s face when he saw Jyn in all her finery. His naked astonishment almost made the whole thing worth it on its own, except that it made Jyn even more nervous.

“You’re not running away, are you Andor?” asked Shara.

He didn’t even look away from Jyn for a second. “What? No. Hi.” He stared at her for a moment. “Hi. You… Hi.” Like he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I think the princess went a little overboard,” she whispered. “It’s too much, right? The flowers?”

“No,” he said. “No, no, you look… Should I have shaved for this?” 

She laughed a little and lightly touched the scruff on the side of his face with the backs of her fingers. “No,” she said. “I like you like this. At least one of us looks like themselves.”

He looked nervously at the other two. “I wasn’t running away,” he said. “I wanted to warn you: there’s a bunch of people in there.”

“What? How many is ‘a bunch?’” Jyn felt a brief moment of panic.

“Ten,” said Cassian, and she relaxed a little. That wasn’t too many, although it seemed to be stressing Cassian out. He really did hate being the center of attention. He finally took his eyes off Jyn long enough to scowl at the princess. “Is this you? Did you invite a bunch of people?”

“No,” said the princess. “I may have mentioned it to a few people but of course I didn’t _invite_ anyone. Have you ever considered that people might _like_ you guys? And be happy for you?”

They looked at each other and then back at the princess. “...No,” said Cassian. “Not really.”

The princess rolled her eyes and Shara laughed.

“I know you like to think you’re such loners,” said the princess. “But we’re your _family,_ stupid. Family shows up for stuff like this.”

Jyn touched her crystal with one hand and blinked back unexpected tears. She’d been used to thinking of them both as unrooted, alone until they found each other. But maybe she’d been wrong about that. Maybe they both had. She took his hand in hers and looked up at him with a little smile. “Welcome home,” she said, in a voice so quiet it was almost soundless. 

Jyn took a deep breath, took a moment to think about all the people who really should be here, but who couldn’t. Her mother and father. Cassian’s parents and the poor little sister, Lavinia, who’d hardly had a chance to live at all. All their fallen comrades from Rogue One and everyone they’d known and cared about who’d died before that, and since. Even Saw, who had been sort of a father to her after she’d lost her own. So many lost lives. Sometimes it felt like the war had taken everything. But it had given them each other, and that was something. She blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to stop the tears.

“Oh,” said the princess. “You can’t cry yet; you’ll never make it if you start now.” 

After all the fuss about her dress and her hair, the actual wedding only took about five minutes. The chaplain said some words and asked them to affirm their intentions, Cassian gave her the plain little ring he’d found, and that was that. 

Afterward, the princess produced a few bottles of wine. “I've been saving these,” she said, “for a special occasion. I found them in with my father’s things at Yavin.”

“Oh,” said Jyn. “No, that’s too special, you should keep saving it.”

She opened a bottle. “Too late!” she said, cheerfully. “There’s been absolutely fuck-all to celebrate in the last couple years. Wine is meant to be enjoyed, not sit around collecting dust. Well,” she corrected herself, “you’re supposed to let it sit around collecting dust for a while, but then you’re supposed to drink it, and I really can’t think of a better time than at a wedding. And I’m sure Dad would agree.”

So everyone had a glass of wine, and a few people insisted on giving toasts, and even though it was really only a handful of extra people, she knew Cassian must be wilting under all the attention, so they didn’t stay long, but retreated back to their quarters, accompanied out the door by cheers and suggestive remarks. The party would undoubtedly go on without them; the princess was not the only one who’d brought alcohol.

“Do you feel any different?” she asked him when they finally made it back to the quiet and safety of their quarters.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Should I?”

“I don’t know. I don’t, either. Except that I’m dressed like a fucking princess,” she added, laughing and twirling the long skirt of her borrowed dress around. “This is kind of fun. I don’t think I’ll ever take it off.”

 _“Never?”_ said Cassian, raising his eyebrows a little, and he caught her around the waist and kissed her neck. “Never ever?”

“Never ever,” she repeated playfully, draping her arms over his shoulders. “I can’t believe we really did that,” she said. “We got _married.”_

“You regret it already?”

“Not yet,” she said, smiling, and she went up on her toes and kissed him.

She took the dress off after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
